African American Criminal Justice System

The criminal justice system today is just a redesigned way to limit the freedom of African Americans. Today, even though African American men only make up a little over 6% of the population, they make up over 40% of the people that are incarcerated. Part of the reason this stat is so disproportional is because of history. Historically African Americans have been oppressed first through slavery, and then through the Jim Crow laws and segregation, and now through the criminal justice system. The criminal justice system today targets African Americans through movements like the war on drugs and through laws like “stand your ground”. The war on drugs is just one example of issues in America have been criminalized to oppress African Americans. The war on drugs turned drug use and addiction into a
crime rather of a health problem. This change of public perception lead to unnecessary incarceration of many African Americans struggling with drug addiction. Police can go into inner cities and arrest a lot of African Americans for drug use. Police can specifically go into situations looking for American Americans using drugs so they can send them to prison for years even though there may be better ways for the individuals to pay back their debt to society.
The war on drugs movement targets African Americans and incarcerates them for very minor crimes. Then there are laws like “stand your ground”. This law states that as long as the person that committed the crime claims that they felt threatened, even if the situation may not support that claim, then the whatever action they took to defend themselves is no longer considered a crime. The reason that this law is such a problem is because it is up to a judge and jury, which in many states will be predominately white, to decide whether the actions taken by the person that felt threatened were justified. White judges and juries are going to side with and not convict White people a lot more than they will African Americans. In the example given in the film it was a White man that killed an African American teenager. If the roles had been reversed, and it was an African American man that had killed a White teenager, the jury probably would have found the White man
guilty. This law is very broad, and up to personal opinion, and because race still influences people’s opinions today it allows for African Americans to be targeted. Through both the war on drugs movement, the “stand your ground” law, and many other parts of the criminal justice system; African Americans are targeted. When politicians are making laws or running for office they create these ways to target African Americans to get support from White Americans. A huge problem is that many Americans do not even recognize some of these movements or laws as targeting African Americans. For example, the war on drugs sounds like a great idea until you recognize the fact that it was only created to incarcerate African Americans. The best way for people to help change the criminal justice system and how it targets African Americans is first by recognizing how African Americans are being targeted. Ignorance is bliss so Americans need to educate themselves on this issue. Then Americans need to not support legislation and political strategies that are targeting African Americans. Mass incarceration, especially of African Americans, in this country is a huge issue and the only way that it is going to get better is if the American people take a stand. Race will probably always be an issue in the United States to an extent, but our goal should be to minimize racial inequality as much as possible, and a great place to start is with minimizing racial inequality in the criminal justice system.