African American Incarceration

African Americans today constitute nearly 1 million of the total 2.3 million incarcerated population, and one in three black males born today can expect to spend time in prison during his lifetime (“Criminal”, par.4).Since African Americans make up 13.3% of the American population, this number is incredibly high(Williams, par.1). These staggering numbers reveal how skewed and unequal the current justice system is. People deserves equal and consistent judgment in the court of law. African Americans have a high incarceration rate because of the heavy focus put on inner city communities, the profiling done by police officers, and are often not given equal trials in court.
In court, minorities are incarcerated for the same crimes as Caucasians
“The War on Drugs is one of the major reasons for a high level of black incarceration. The explosion of both the prison population and its racial disparity are largely attributable to aggressive street-level enforcement of the drug laws and harsh sentencing of drug offenders.” While the “war on drugs” itself is not a bad thing only, it is only targeting one part of the problem instead of the whole problem. African Americans represent 12% of the total population of drug users, but 38% of those arrested for drug offenses, and 59% of those in state prison for a drug offense (“Criminal”, par.13). This system is problematic because it only focuses on inner city areas. The attention the inner city communities receive put a facade that it is only a problem there and nowhere else. About 14 million Whites and 2.6 million African Americans report using an illicit drug (“Criminal”, par. 11). Caucasians use drugs five times as much as African Americans, yet African Americans are sent to prison for drug offenses at ten times the rate of Whites. In short, white people do more drugs, and black people serve more time. In addition, officers already perceive black people as more
This is completely true. There are currently 110,871 white inmates in prisons across the United States compared to the black 71,647(“Federal”, par.1). What is not said in that argument, however, is black people only represent 13.3% of the United States population, while white people make up about 77%(Williams, par. 1). So, yes, while there are more white people in jail, black people are going to jail at extremely high rates in proportion to white people. The other argument is black people are more likely to commit crimes. Police officers are stationed near minority-populated areas. When a focus is put on catching crimes in a specific area, of course more crimes are going to be seen. If an African American and a Caucasian commit the same crime at the same time, the black person is more likely to be arrested. This is due in part to the fact that black people are more heavily policed because they are seen as more dangerous. One problem is that the government sees this and knows it is a serious problem plaguing America, yet they have not taken any steps to prevent it. It is hard to dispute the facts about racial disparity in the justice system. While it is not good to commit crimes, it is unfair if a different party gets less time due to