The Mass Incarceration Of Black People In The Usa – A Modern Form Of Genocide

The mass incarceration of black people is an issue in the world and those who do not speak on this matter help promote a modern-day form of genocide. From the inequitable use of the prisoners in California who are in the system that are set to help the community with their rate of pay being one dollar an hour. To the fact that mass incarceration not only severely hurts the individual charged but also their families. The United States happens to have a higher prison incarceration rate compared to the countries we deem autocratic such as Germany, Iran and even China with a population of over a billion citizens. Richard Nixon implemented the 1970s War on Drugs and that system today still stands by engraving the thought to white people that different usages of the same drug should equal different serving times for people of different skin tones. On that hand he has slowly began to create an introduction to genocide and by not pressing this matter we ourselves are unintentionally contributing to this issue.

Genocide is the deliberate and systematic destruction of a racial, political, or cultural group as defined by Webster Dictionary. From the 1950s to 2016 the United States prison system growth went from being two hundred thousand to a staggering one million and six hundred thousand people. With the United States having a higher prison incarceration rate than the countries we call repressive for example Russia, Cuba, and China, one would believe the implemented War on Drugs would end. These repressive countries do not see a reason to imprison everyone who breaks a crime they just punish to the extent needed. Morally speaking someone who gets charged for petty theft should not have a prison sentence of five years. Waisted resources, the occupancy of our facilities and money being drained by people who do not pose a threat to the community when simply put they could participate in community service or pay fines. Imprisoning our minorities is essentially degrading them to second class citizens. The released depiction of creating a new lifestyle once out of prison is false because they are not given the same chances they had before being put into the system. Getting a job in America is hard as is but when you become a convicted felon it seems nearly impossible restrictions such as public housing, welfare, the inability to take out loans for the students’ school, and the privilege of voting is taken away.

Now presented with the unjust use of prisoners being a modern-day example of legalized slavery. “Many of your speed limit signs, your stop signs, your no U-turns signs they make many of them right here. Their pay rate ranges from fifteen to sixty-five cents per hour” (William Lee, superintendent, Eastern Correctional Facility). When someone is convicted and moved into a federal prison, they become a legal workforce for the government. An example of this would be the Deadly Wildfires of California during 2018. These out of control fires needed more help than California could admit, their solution was to utilize and vet the inmates they were to see who would be able to help them do their duty correctly and extinguish the fires. Earning one dollar a day when active fires are present and two dollars a day when they are not, take note that the average California firefighters pay ranges from thirty-four to fifty dollars a day. Our government is saving millions of dollars by paying those inmates pennies due to the fact that the millions of people in jail today are placed there because of institutionalized classism and racism. Even though it’s understood that they are volunteering and are getting sentence reductions for doing this deed it did not change the simple fact of the United States having and using to their advantage the highest rate of incarceration in the world was morally unacceptable.

The question that now arises is was it a war on drugs or a war on blacks? There was a poll for Americans to see who seen drug abuse as the nations “number one problem” in 1985 between two to six percent agreed. By September of 89 that percentage rose to sixty four percent with it being a popular fixation as well as the most extreme topic by Americans in polling history. However less than a year later that percentage fell back to less than ten percent as the media lost interest in the topic (A Brief History of the Drug War). John Ehrlichman stated, “The Nixon Campaign in 1968 and the Nixon White House after that had two enemies: the antiwar left and black people.” Knowing that it was not illegal to be black or against the war Richard Nixon was able to convince people that America’s number one issue was drugs. Taking the usage of heroin in black people and the marijuana use of nonconformist Nixon was able to criminalize those drugs to the point where it was able to destroy society’s view of them as a whole. Prison sentencing when it came to the crack versus cocaine debate was the prime example of this being a war on black people. Till 1986 the charges of crack and cocaine was treated the same and then the passing of the Anti-Drug Abuse Act was the beginning of the higher rate of incarceration in African American men, because of the increase of police presence in low income neighborhoods, those caught with five grams of crack equaled the same sentence as the white men who would be in possession of five hundred grams of cocaine. In reference to the thirteenth amendment the War on Drugs was recorded as the highest institution in American history that contributed to the enslavement amount of minority people.

Representing four percent of the world’s population the United States holds reign with having a twenty five percent prison incarceration rate. Most people are held in state jails and not federal prison. Money is a deciding factor of who is able to get released and who stays, those who are not convicted but can not post bail stay in their local jails until the court makes a decision for them or they began to acquire debt by working with a bail bondsman. And many who are introduced to the system find it true that it is hard to stay out of. The Bureau of Justice Statistics reported that two thirds of jail populators have yet to be convicted. On average nearly 450 thousand people who have yet to be convicted of a crime sit in jail and essentially are stuck because they do not have the means to pay their bonds and freedom. This poses a big disadvantage for low class citizens who can not pay their bail, they are risking the security of their jobs once released, losing time to spend with their families and subjecting them to the debt that will incur from a bailsman. Bail bonds agents are known for their exploitation of poor black communities.

Also “within three years of release two thirds of released prisoners were rearrested” as reported by the National Statistics on Recidivism. That is nearly seventy percent of people who are likely to keep coming back to jail because of their first arrest. Forty percent of adolescents who are arrested return by the age of 20. There are more people in jail than there are people who live in the United States major cities such as San Diego, California with a population of 1.5 million or Dallas, Texas with 1.3 million, the United States jail and prison population holds at 2.2 million. If people’s freedom did not depend on whether they could afford to be released even if they were not a danger to society the rate of incarceration within the United States would make a significant decrease. If correction was taught in the prison system as much as punishment the rate of recidivism would decrease as well. Convicted felons show high suicide rates in America because they become socially disconnected due to homelessness and their lack of finding jobs and support. It is associated that being tough on crimes meant being tough on criminals, but punishment is only a fraction of what it takes to insure crime reduction.

Without speaking on this repressive matter, we ourselves are contributing to the modern-day genocide. Though it could take years to undo what the African-American population has endured, by paying those volunteer prisoners a dollar a day to fight the deadly wildfires, holding a higher incarceration rate than China, a country with over a billion citizens, and still implementing this fear of drugs being the biggest issue in America from someone who lied about the dangerousness of drugs over forty five years ago, America has yet to make improvements toward a better lifestyle for African Americans.

Works Cited

1. “A Brief History of the Drug War.” Drug Policy Alliance, www.drugpolicy.org/issues/brief-history-drug-war.
2. Frank, Thomas. “Bill Clinton's Crime Bill Destroyed Lives, and There's No Point Denying It | Thomas Frank.” The Guardian, Guardian News and Media, 15 Apr. 2016, www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/apr/15/bill-clinton-crime-bill-hillary-black-lives-thomas-frank.
3. Hess, Abigail J. “California Is Paying Inmates $1 an Hour to Fight Wildfires.” CNBC, CNBC, 12 Nov. 2018, www.cnbc.com/2018/08/14/california-is-paying-inmates-1-an-hour-to-fight-wildfires.html.
4. “Jail Inmates in 2016.” BUREAU OF JUSTICE STATISTICS | Office of Justice Programs | U.S. Department of Justice, Feb. 2018, www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/ji16_sum.pdf.
5. Kim, Gina, et al. “Facing the Truth: The Case for Reparations | Moyers & Company.” BillMoyers.com, 21 May 2014, billmoyers.com/episode/facing-the-truth-the-case-for-reparations/.
6. Nittle, Nadra. “Why Housing Discrimination Is to Blame for Racial Income Disparities.” Atlanta Black Star, 26 July 2017, atlantablackstar.com/2017/07/26/housing-discrimination-redlining-and-lack-of-land-ownership-created-the-racial-wealth-gap/.
7. “Understanding Genocide, Black People, and Capitalist Accumulation .” Understanding Genocide, Black People, and Capitalist Accumulation, 30 June 2014, revcom.us/a/344/understanding-genocide-black-people-and-capitalist-accumulation-en.html.