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Evolution Of Mass Incarceration

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Mass incarceration according to Michelle Alexander became the system that replaced Jim Crow and although her claim is a bit hyperbolic, but both do share some similarities. In a way, both were created through institutions trying to remove the rights of certain amount of black people, especially in the South. There are as many similarities as there are differences but mass incarceration was developed in a process rather than merely existing out of nowhere. Colorblindness comes from the mentality of ignoring race or saying that race is not important at least in the case of public speeches or justification of policies. The evolution of mass incarceration becoming a racial control against African Americans was achieved through the Reagan administration, …show more content…
Data that proves the racial discrimination of the police, comes from a New Jersey Study in 1990s. Alexander’s proof starts this by saying,” In Jew Jersey, the data showed only 15 percent of all drivers on the turnpike were racial minorities, yet 42 percent of all stops and 73 percent of all arrests were black motorist.” Although the targeting of African Americans would seem to prove that American was not truly colorblind, yet can justify it by the fact that they want to lower violent crimes or “get guns out of the streets.” Therefore a system that allows police to stop people based only on consent, and proof of racial profiling shows that mass incarceration of African Americans was done through police that were incentivized by the government to arrest African Americans from a perception that they seem to be more likely to be violent even though most evidence proves the contrary. The greatest way that the police help in mass incarceration was through amassing arrest of African Americans in order to be dealt with in the justice system. From there the justice system helps keep them in prison by not providing adequate legal advice and sentencing drug crimes with mandatory …show more content…
The legal system allows many African Americans to be imprisoned since they lack any comprehensive legal advice. Alexander shows this through mentioning the percentage of those lacking funds to get a lawyer. As she says, “Approximately 80 percent of criminal defendants are indigent and thus unable to hire a lawyer. Yet our nation’s public defender system is woefully inadequate. The most visible sign of the failed system is the astonishingly large caseloads public defenders routinely carry, making it impossible for them to provide meaningful representation to their clients.” Public defenders end up giving the advice of accepting plea bargaining since they have so many cases. As many people arrested for drug crimes do not have money for defense, or accept the Public defender’s advice, they suffer from being bullied by prosecutor. This means that those arrested on drug crimes end up sentence to time in prison. The mandatory minimum sentence requires that drug charges must include jail time of a certain amount of years. It’s used mostly as a fear tactic to get defendants to accept plea bargains, rather than as an actual punishment for the crime. If removed, it may diminish the power that courts have to make people accept bad plea bargains. The trouble with this comes from the supreme court that upholds the need of mandatory minimums. As

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