Essay On Mass Incarceration

Mass Incarceration After the thirteenth amendment was passed in 1865 abolishing slavery, racial tension was still at an all-time high. The idea that white people were still superior to any other race specifically African Americans, this made things even more difficult. Due to this racial tension Jim Crow laws were created. Jim Crow laws were a racial caste system that separated black people from white people, predominantly in the south, through the years 1877 to the mid-1960s. The Jim Crow included rules such as: a black male could not offer his hand to a white man because; it implied social equality, blacks and whites were not supposed to eat together. A black man was also not allowed to offer to light the cigarette of a white female. The …show more content…
Henslin displays a table that estimates about forty-seven percent of African Americans are inmates in the U.S. state prisons (151). African Americans are also the leading race-ethnicity in jail. These Statements were stated to say this; mass incarceration is keeping the African American race from advancing in society. Approximately forty percent of the inmates have less than a high school education (151). With half of the African American population incarcerated that eliminates the chances of a substantial income and power. While being incarcerated the only social status you would develop is felon or convict. With the last factor being education forty percent of the inmates have less than a high school education, which means no diploma or GED. Status, power, education and the chance for potential income are all taken away from nearly half the African American population. How can a race advance as a whole if the main components for success are taken away from them? The answer is quite simple, they don’t advance. The point of Jim Crow was to separate the blacks from the whites, making sure their level in society was never equal and so far this is still going on. Mass Incarceration is doing just that, with the power to label someone a criminal the so called “Justice System” is able to treat the common criminal in this case African Americans as …show more content…
This act of imprisoning hundreds and thousands of black mem is simply inhumane and morally wrong and this had affected our past, present and will affect our future. The Bureau of Justice Statistics suggests that, one in three black men can expect to go to prison in their lifetime. African American youth also have a higher rate of juvenile incarceration and are more likely to be sentenced to adult prison (American Progress). It is sad to know that the future youth of the African American race have to worry about being arrested instead of going to school and getting an education. They have to worry about being racially profiled or being wrongfully arrested for anything the justice system deems unlawful. Mass incarceration is said to help crack down on this phony war on drugs it is a war on people that the government is profiting from. Prisons across the nation get paid to keep prisoners in jail that oddly sounds familiar. People being isolated from society, kept captive by chains, wired fences, big structured walls and watch towers. Being told when to eat, when to shower, when to sleep, how to dress and when it is ok for them to be free. The concept of slavery oozes all over this, as we speak more black people are being placed behind bars guilty or not. The United States has a tendency where once you’re labeled a criminal they just give up on you and leave to fend for yourself within this