I always found it interesting how the
great the racial disparities are withing our prisons across the U.S. especially
the states in the south. It seems to me that after African American's make one
step forward in the U.S. another task is put before them. They were freed from
slavery only to face discrimination on all levels of social life outside of
their homes. They overcame this discrimination with the Civil Rights Movement
that grants them legal equality. Now these" Get tough on Crime " and
"War on Drugs" campaigns target areas that are highly concentrated
with a African American population. These areas are typically referred to as
ghettos and people have their own thoughts about what a ghetto is but here is
the real definition “The term ghetto now refers
to an overcrowded urban area often associated with specific ethnic or racial
populations living below the poverty line. Crime rates in ghettoes are
typically higher than in other parts of the city. “ – Webster Dictionary. The criminal
justice system is not the be totally blamed for this because these social
trends were set up after each of the
first two events I mentioned that African Americans overcame. Discrimination in
living areas causes people of the same ethnic backgrounds to live closer
together. And as you can imagine when people are pushed into smaller
concentrated areas that don’t offer opportunity there is more room for violence to occur. Because of this these areas were perfect breeding grounds for these programs. As drug use spiked to sky high levels crack cocaine was the drug of choice in many of these areas.
This is where we an begin to blame our legislative system why were the laws so much harsher for holder of 5grams of crack cocaine versus a holder of powder cocaine. Powder cocaine is actually a more potent version of the drug. This all came about in 1986 when Congress passed laws that had 100 to 1 disparity for trafficking or possession of crack cocaine. This law was clearly discriminate against lower class minorities because they would be more likely to use crack because it was cheaper. A person convicted in a federal court of 5 grams of crack would receive a minimum of 5 years in prison. While a person could have 500 grams of powder cocaine and receive the same sentence.
This continued until 2010 when the Fair Sentencing Act cut the disparity down to 18:1. I feel as though the damage has already been done though. African Americans are still the majority of of the prison populations and its not likely to stop for its various reason. Change needs to come on a few fronts before we can or will see any significant change. More efforts could be made to change the social attitudes against African Americans. The breaking down of ghettos could help decrease the breeding grounds for drugs and drug dealers and gang activity. And we must address the terrible relationship between African American Males and the police.
Below are a few links that talk more about the Fair Sentencing Act and how it helped some people get out of jail earlier than expected
Thanks for reading
Jacquese Martin
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