The Criminalization of Race in America (Essay Example)

In the United States, one in three black males is expected to go to prison at least once within their lifetimes. To understand why the Justice System is failing, we need to look back at Black Codes from the 1860s which codified obstacles to Black socioeconomic mobility and started a cycle of disproportionate mass incarceration. After the Civil War, despite the Emancipation Proclamation, African Americans were not free. Southern states enacted laws designed to maintain White superiority over Blacks. Unfortunately, the Northern states provided no refuge; their laws prevented Blacks from fully integrating into society, which cut off pathways for upward mobility. With scarce options, an epidemic of substance abuse and crime ravished impoverished Black communities. In response, efforts by White politicians to reduce drug use and related crime - the War on Drugs - worsened the situation by criminalizing and unfairly targeting African Americans in ways quite reminiscent of the Black Codes. Over a century of these unfair policies have caused generational trauma within the African American community. The cycle of biased laws and mass incarceration is meant to maintain the control of America's second-class citizens by upper-class Whites. 

Black Codes kept African Americans subordinate to Whites long after the Civil War. These laws required African Americans to carry permits (issued by their White employers) at all times or be subjected to fines, imprisonment, and forced labor. By setting up arbitrary “crimes”, White elites were able to invoke the “except as a punishment for crime” loophole of the 13th Amendment's prohibition against slavery. Section 1 of the Louisiana Black Codes states: 

“Be it ordained by the police jury of the parish of St. Landry, That no negro shall be allowed to pass within the limits of said parish without special permit in writing from his employer. Whoever shall violate this provision shall pay a fine of two dollars and fifty cents, or in default thereof shall be forced to work four days on the public road, or suffer corporeal punishment as provided hereinafter.” 

These Codes forced freedmen into an inferior position as road workers - slavery by another name. Furthermore, the criminal justice system was unfair and biased against Blacks. With prosecutorial discretion, the murder of a Black person by a White person was rarely punished: of the 500 Whites tried for the murder of a Black person in Texas between 1865 and 1866, none were convicted. The justice system exacerbated racial disparities and inequality. Since Reconstruction, America sought to create a narrative criminalizing Black people to keep them inferior to Whites. Terms such as “slave” and “convict” became synonymous with African Americans. This narrative created an everlasting legacy of rejecting and demeaning African Americans in the South; a sentiment which was later adopted by the North as the Great Migration took place. Together, a “United” States was formed – united against the mobility of African Americans. 

Correspondingly, the Great Migration provided no escape from the egregious discrimination and unequal treatment African Americans faced on a daily basis: Jim Crow laws of the North, while not as blatant as the South, nonetheless, forced many Blacks into poverty and to live in isolated, impoverished communities, with a lack of opportunities, and a high vulnerability to substance abuse. As more African Americans migrated to the North, resentment and suspicion from White residents grew. Residential segregation prevailed as White residents feared that Blacks moving in would lower property values in their neighborhood. As a result, housing in safe, desirable neighborhoods was not available to Blacks - leaving them unhoused or relegated to undesirable parts of town. For example, in Chicago, on a single day in 1918, 664 African American applications were submitted for an inadequate 55 housing units. This created uninhabitable, high density housing and a strikingly high population of unhoused African Americans. Furthermore, the segregation of public facilities, business networks, and employment, cut off most legal opportunities to earn a living wage. Black Codes and the practice of restricting African American mobility and access to housing and employment was as common in the North as it was in the South. Unfortunately, within any marginalized community, along with a lack of opportunities comes the vulnerability to substance abuse to take their mind off of the present moment, and to utilize drug dealing as a means for income. Substances are always going to be abused, yet which ones are determined by affordability: prior to the 1980s, this was alcohol, yet in the mid-1980s, cocaine became affordable ($3-10 per hit) in the form of crack cocaine. This newfound drug proved to be quite a formidable enemy, and the United States government (led by White elites) was ready to start a war. 

The War on Drugs reinforced the trend of biased, unforgiving prosecution of African Americans. The War’s harsh sentences and policies were as detrimental to the Black community as the Black Codes were more than a hundred years prior. The communities affected by substance abuse were, and still are, in dire need of assistance. Yet, during the Clinton administration, funding previously allocated for public housing was redirected to building prisons instead: public housing funding was cut by $17 billion (61 percent), while funding for correctional facilities was increased by $19 billion (171 percent). Prisons became the United States’ public housing program for impoverished communities. Furthermore, a five-year limit was imposed on welfare benefits, along with the withdrawal of welfare for anyone convicted of a felony drug offense, which at the time, included the mere possession of marijuana. The War on Drugs also introduced mandatory sentencing, which led to more people being incarcerated in jails and prisons for non-violent crimes than for violent ones.  While seemingly impartial, the harsh crackdown on drugs proved to be severely biased against Blacks in their application. A 1995 report from the Department of Justice revealed that while Blacks account for 49% of arrests for selling drugs, they are only 16% of admitted drug sellers, and while Blacks account for 36% of drug possession arrests, they are only 13% of persons admitting illicit drug use in the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) annual survey. Furthermore, from 1986 to 1991, there was an 828 percent increase in Black women being incarcerated for non-violent drug offenses. This left countless Bblack kids without parents to support them and guide them towards a better life. Similar to Black Codes, today’s justice system and policies criminalize and imprison African Americans for non-violent crimes that do not warrant such severe punishment, while turning a blind eye to whites engaging in the exact same behavior.

The unfortunate legacy of hundreds of years of racism, segregation, and our ironically unjust criminal justice system is undeniable. Millions of Black people to this day, are affected by the repercussions of racist policies during the Reconstruction era, which shaped the anti-Black narrative we witness today. The War on Drugs only furthered the narrative of criminalizing Black people. Denial of welfare and opportunities for socio-economic mobility in Black communities, combined with biased prosecution and mandatory sentencing, led to the disproportionate mass incarceration of Blacks in the United States. Yet most alarmingly is the fact that Whites are not being arrested, prosecuted, or sentenced to the extent as Black people are for the same crimes. This cycle of discrimination, poverty, drug abuse, and incarceration has been perpetuated for generations. While there is no “perfect” solution, acknowledging our nation’s unjust past and recognizing its continuous impact is the right place to start. 

Bibliography

Alexander, Michelle. The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration In The Age of Colorblindness. 10th ed. New York: New Press, 2020.

The Black Code of St. Landry's Parish, Louisiana, 1865 La. Acts. Accessed February 2, 2022. link

Brown, Nikki L. M, and Barry M. Stentiford. Jim Crow: A Historical Encyclopedia of the American Mosaic. Santa Barbara, CA: Greenwood, an imprint of ABC-CLIO, 2014.

Department of Justice Bureau of Justice Statistics. The Racial Disparity in U.S. Drug Arrests. By Patrick A. Langan. Research report no. 1174600. Washington D.C., United States: Bureau of Justice Statistics, 1995. 

Johnson, Roberta Ann. "African Americans and Homelessness: Moving through History." Journal of Black Studies 40, no. 4 (2010): 583-605. link.

"Segregation." In Gale U.S. History Online Collection. Detroit, MI: Gale, 2021. link.

Small, Deborah. "The War on Drugs Is a War on Racial Justice." Social Research 68, no. 3 (2001): 896-903. link