A Systematic Perspective

Disclaimer: It should be made clear that there are bad people in the world. There are people who are so corrupt and so blinded by their ambition that they will do anything and everything to achieve their means. There are child molestors; there are serial killers. There are psychopaths. Their place is arguably in a mental health facility, receiving around-the-clock mental health care. There are people who do not deserve a second chance. This article is not about them. This article is about the thousands of men and women who are targeted because of their socioeconomic status, the color of their skin, and the stereotypes placed on them from the moment they are born.

• Between 1980 and 2015, the number of people incarcerated in America increased from roughly 500,000 to< over 2.2 million
• Today, the United States makes up about 5% of the world’s population and has 21% of the world’s prisoners.
• 1 in every 37 adults in the United States, or 2.7% of the adult population, is under some form of correctional supervision. (NAACP, 2017)

*Statistics from NAACP are most current.*

What is wrong with the picture that was just created in your head? Is it difficult to imagine potentially innocent, potentially well-meaning, potentially, fundamentally good people rotting away in a system that believes that single events define a person’s future existence, indefinitely and permanently?

Imagine the worst thing you have ever done. Imagine everyone that you care about learning of it. Imagine them isolating you, and soon enough, your employer finds out, as well. Now you are being fired. You are alone, jobless, and on the road to being homeless. What do you do? How do you function normally afterward? What if you were told you weren’t going to be given a second chance?

This kind of devastation wrecks havoc on the incarcerated and their families. Rights to privacy, rights to be a contributing citizen, to work, to interact normally with your family are stripped away from individuals the moment they are deemed guilty of their crime. The sanitation of prisons is sub-par, some: “15% of jail inmates and 22% of prisoners – compared to 5% of the general population – reported ever having tuberculosis, Hepatitis B and C, HIV/AIDS, or other STIs” (NAACP, 2017).

Over the past forty to fifty some years, prisons and jails have become mass holding tanks for humans. Peaceful inmates join gangs for protection. Drug addicts come clean, only to overdose once free from jail, never having received the right rehabilitation procedures. With a ‘be tough on crime’ mentality, punishment is brutal and swift, attempting to discourage future crime, but bouncing around the justice system has its toll. Recidivism rates fall outrageously high. Within five years of release, about 76.6% of released prisoners are rearrested, and of those rearrested, 56.7 percent were arrested by the end of their first free year.

Furthermore, the racial agenda pursued by the current prison system should not be ignored. In 2015, African Americans and Hispanics made up approximately 32% of the US population, but they represented 56% of all incarcerated people, and research shows that if African Americans and Hispanics were incarcerated at the same rates as whites, prison and jail populations would decline by almost 40%.

This systematic racism is not isolated to everyday prison life, either. According to a study on solitary confinement by Spear, blacks represent about 14% of Americans, 38% of incarcerated persons, but about 60% of people held in solitary confinement. About 300 immigrants are held in solitary confinement on any given day at facilities that make up Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

On any given day, thousands of minorities are confined to a 6×9 room for 22-24 hours. On the chance they get an hour or two outside the room, they are still alone, moved to pens outside or shower rooms with no one in them.

Days upon days of imposed isolation takes haunts solitary confinement inmates. About 50% of prison suicides occur among the 4% of those in solitary confinement. Sixty percent, of the four percent of people in solitary confinement, are black people. And yet, society still denies any racial motivation in mass incarceration.

It is important to know, not only about the problems within the current prison system, but also about the racial differences in crime. An argument could be made that white people simply do not engage in as much crime as minorities, but I would beg you to look upon your own experiences. How often have you seen a white person break the law and get off with a ticket, a warning, a smile? How often have you seen a minority break the law and get off scot-free?

We have not even scratched the surface of the issues with the current United States justice system, but this is enough information for now. Remember what you have learned here. Ask questions. Look for answers. Be aware of your own experiences, and figure out how you can change the world, even if just a little at a time, for the better.

Featured Image from The Intercept by William Widmer