The Disparate Treatment of Black Americans in the Criminal Justice System.
According to a Vera Institute of Justice evidence brief written by Harvard Professor Elizabeth Hinton, African Americans are 5.1 times more likely to be incarcerated compared to white people. This disparity can be seen separately with African American women and men as well, though it is much more prevalent and disturbing in men. The statistic that shook me the most was that although black men make up only 13% of the US male population, they make up 35% of all men who are incarcerated for a period greater than a year. Throughout all of this research, I found myself asking the question why. Why is there such a huge ethnic disparity in incarceration? Why does that disparity seem to be specifically targeted toward African Americans? And what societal institutions have perpetuated the disparity to such an extent, even in a time when equality is one of America’s most vaunted tenets?
To answer these questions, it is imperative to first understand the root of the prejudice which drives this vicious cycle of incarceration. Following Lincoln’s emancipation of the slaves, many in the South and in the North took advantage of a loophole in the 13th Amendment, namely that an African American could not be enslaved unless convicted of a crime. In today’s world, that wouldn’t be such an issue, but in the mid to late 1800s, many African Americans were forced back into convict leasing, a system that forced convicts to enter what was virtual slavery, through the conviction of crimes that included “walking without purpose” or “walking at night.” Of course, this led to a disparate rate of black incarceration, which was used as empirical proof to shape African Americans into being a distinct, inherently dangerous population.
According to Hinton, “the high arrest and incarceration rates based on racial policies” shaped and informed political discourse and policies through the 20th century, especially as President Johnson started a “War on Crime,” through which he sought to curb the massive increase in crime in urban areas. Although those rates rose for a number of different reasons, including a desire for better police funding, Americans began to view urban areas, which were mostly populated with African Americans, as high crime and therefore began to associate African Americans with crime itself.
Even policies today, such as drug-free zone laws, laws that prohibit the sale or use of drugs in proximity to certain areas such as schools and playgrounds, disproportionately affect African Americans. This can be explained by the residential segregation that not only pushes low-income black people to high-density urban areas but also increases the density of urban neighborhoods with schools. Ultimately, 2004 Massachusetts sentencing data showed that black and Latino people accounted for 80% of drug-free zone convictions, even though 45% of the people arrested for drug offenses, in general, were white. This cycle of incarceration can be easily perpetuated by the stereotype of black people as dangerous and inherently criminal. When policymakers, both state and federal, sit down to craft policies that ensure the safety of citizens in their jurisdiction from crime, their unfair views will ensure that they pass laws that affect black populations disproportionately, by the simple value of how their environment is conducive toward higher crime rates. When that is combined with the fact that police often patrol low-income black areas at higher rates, there will continue to be a tremendous disparity in the incarceration of African American people as compared to white Americans.
This topic is a large one to unpack, with many factors that contribute to the perpetuation of the vicious cycle of ethnic disparity in the criminal justice system. Unfortunately, I will be unable to cover all of these in one post. Therefore, I will continue my discussion on this topic tomorrow, keeping to my promise of at least 3 posts this week, if not 5.
As always, I encourage readers to check my sources and read about the issue themselves. Feel free to contact me if you have any questions, or want me to discuss a specific topic on my blog.
https://www.vera.org/downloads/publications/for-the-record-unjust-burden-racial-disparities.pdf
