Incarceration In State Prisons

African Americans are incarcerated in state prisons at more than 5 times the rate of whites on average. For example in Oklahoma has the highest incarceration rate for African-Americans. Approximately 4.6% of all African-American males in Oklahoma are incarcerated compared to of only 0.9% white males. In California 1 out of every 22 African-American adult male is in state prison. The racial disparity is greatest in the category of drug arrests and indicates institutional discrimination against African-Americans. It is hypothesized in some of the literature that for less serious crimes police may exhibit greater discretion at the point of arrest and judges may deviate from the constraints of the law which allows other factors to enter into their
judgments. These factors may be racial bias or perceived threat. All literature selected conclude that racial disparities in prison cannot be explained by criminal offenses. The consensus is that the main drivers for racial disparities in prison are implicit racial bias and stereotyping. It starts at the point of arrest and continues to the final point of imprisonment. Harsh punishments which have been adopted in the last few decades are the main cause of the unprecedented rise in mass imprisonment. For drug crimes racial disparities are especially apparent and severe. African-Americans are 2.5 times more likely to be arrested for drug possession. Despite evidence that Whites and African-Americans use drugs at roughly the same rate. For example: from 1995 – 2005, African-Americans made up approximately 13% of drug users but account for 36% of drug arrests. In New York over 94% of the prison inmates convicted of drug offenses are Black or Latino.
Contrary to stereotype, the typical cocaine user is white, male, employed fulltime and lives in a small metropolitan area or in the suburbs. It has become clear that that police target specific areas and people. A well-known approach of the police is “stop, question and frisk”. This allows great discretion to law enforcement. In addition, the presence of a criminal record is often the basis to imprison for subsequent offenses. This leads to a downward spiral where a person becomes repeatedly trapped in the prison system, similar to a revolving door. Often those who refuse to plead guilty or are unable to post bail to secure a pretrial release are singled out for more punitive treatment. Literature shows that prosecutors are more inclined to charge African-American defendants under state habitual offender laws than white defendants. California’s “three strikes law” has shown to increase racial disparity because of the greater likelihood of previous convictions of African-Americans. The racial bias is exemplified by the disparity in prison sentences for crack vs. powder cocaine. The possession of powder cocaine has a different and less severe sentencing outcome in court than crack cocaine. In 1994, 90% of those convicted for crack cocaine were African-Americans whereas powder cocaine offenders were 43% Latino and 26% White.
The findings of the reviewed literature show that the crime rate has fluctuated over the past 30 years and that crime rate alone does not explain the dramatic increase in mass incarceration of African-Americans.
In 1973 approximately 300,000 people were incarcerated today more than 2.3 million are imprisoned. The vast majority of that huge increase of imprisonment is due to the War on Drug. About 2/3 of the increase in the federal prison population is due to drug offenses. For state prisons 50% of the increase is due to drug offenses. Most of the war on drugs has been waged in poor African-American communities. Although studies show that people of all colors use and sell illegal drugs at about the same rate African-Americans have been explicitly targeted and arrested. Some studies even suggest that white youth are significantly more likely to deal in illegal drugs. This is supported by the fact that White youth have about 3 times more drug-related visits to the emergency
room.
The war on drug was declared in 1982 by Ronald Reagan during a time when drug dealing crime was declining.
Former President Nixon’s chief of staff admitted that the key was to devise a system to blame African-Americans for crime and thus the drug war was used to push and promote racial politics. However, the war on drug was never intended to end the availability of drugs or to decrease drug dealing and subsequently drug crime. Behind the drug on war was a huge money machine. Federal funding was distributed to those agencies that made the most drug arrests. Thus the incentive was not to reduce the crime rate but to get it going at the same rate. Another big benefit was that any cash, homes or cars seized from drug suspects fell into the hand of the state who could keep it for their own use. The results were devastating: people of color were arrested en masse for relatively minor, non-violent drug offenses. Most arrests were for drug possession and only 1 out of 5 was for sales. The 1990’s saw the most increase in mass incarceration and almost 80% of the increase was for the less harmful marijuana possession. Sadly the literature review shows that in many respects African-Americans are doing no better than during the times of Martin Luther King when after his assassination an uprising took place in the bigger cities. Today approximately 25% of African-Americans live below the poverty line about the same as in 1968. The racial dimension of mass incarceration in the United
States is unprecedented; no other country in the world incarcerates so many of its ethnic or racial minorities. Once a person has been caught up in the system the chance of ever being truly free again are very slim. Often the defendants are denied worthwhile legal representation or none at all and many are pressured into a plea bargain to escape the threat of lengthy draconian sentences. Either way in prison or outside of prison the formal control continues by way of probation and parole.
In essence the war on drugs is nothing more than a war on the African-American community. The young men and women have been rounded up and arrested for participating in precisely the same crimes that are mostly ignored in white middle- and upper class communities. As Michelle Alexander puts it “Convictions for drug offenses are the single most important cause of the explosion in incarceration rates in the United States.”