I have a feeling we’re going to be hearing a lot on this subject so let’s think a bit about it. Rather than link to any single article I’ll just start by listing some views. I’m pretty certain that I can find prominent voices saying each of them.
- Blacks and Hispanics are being imprisoned in large numbers due to white racism.
- People are being imprisoned who shouldn’t be because there are too many acts that have been designated as crimes that shouldn’t be.
- Blacks and Hispanics are committing crimes in numbers disproportionate to their total numbers because of a lack of economic opportunity for them.
- Blacks and Hispanics are being imprisoned in disproportionate numbers because they commit a disproportionate number of the crimes.
- Blacks and Hispanics are being imprisoned in disproportionate numbers because they’re being targeted by the police.
- Blacks and Hispanics are being imprisoned in disproportionate numbers because they can’t afford adequate representation.
- Blacks and Hispanics are committing crimes in numbers disproportionate to their total numbers because of social dysfunction within their communities.
- A lot of people are going to prison here because the United States is a good place to be a career criminal. Our wealth and our system attract criminals.
- There are very few innocents in prison. The reason that there appears to be a large population in prison for non-violent crimes is an artifact of our legal system.
- The incarceration rate in the United States is only drastically out of line if you think we’re a European country. Incarceration rates tend to be higher in large, diverse countries than they are in small, homogeneous ones with lots of social cohesion.
Have I left anything important out?
My take: nearly all of the above. I think that we should decriminalize simple possession of small amounts of drugs and beef up the treatment options available. However, I also think that won’t have as great an effect as many advocates believe. I think that prosecutors should have less discretion in pleading violent felonies down to misdemeanors and in particular pleading them down to simple possession. I think that the numbers don’t support the idea that there are a large number of first-time offenders doing prison time for simple possession. I also think that the common practice of releasing serial offenders again and again after they’re arrested without punishment until they finally do something more serious and then convicting them on a lesser charge and sentencing them to prison has serious implications. Among them being that it brings the justice system into disrepute.
Based on current circumstances, I say not enough people are in prison. It’s awfully easy to find people with long rap sheets for truly bad stuff that plead down to time served – only to go out and commit more heinous crimes.
Recent example was a guy that was in a gang that abducted a federal agent down in Tourist Land. He had been in jail earlier this year on attempted murder charges for trying to shoot some girls a few blocks from my house a while back. They dropped the charges apparently because the prosecutors just have too much to do and who gives a shit about blacks in gangs trying to shoot each other’s whores, amiright? When he pulled off that previous shooting he was awaiting trial for having brought a bunch of guns to a local high school with his brother to pop some caps in a bunch of n*****s asses for theft of a gold chain or some bullshit. He’s likely finally going to serve some time for fucking w/ tourists in Tourist Land, and because they got unlucky and nabbed a federal agent, but he’ll be back on the streets within five years.
The simple point is this: if too many blacks are in jail unjustly, why are black neighborhoods so crime-ridden? Is The Man just locking up innocent people and letting the truly dangerous roam?
@ellipses, because if you look closer at racial disparity in the U.S. justice system, it’s the race of the victim that is the more important factor than the race of the accused.
The glaring explanation you left out is that Blacks and Hispanics have more depraved hearts, which is not politically correct, of course.
It is a combination of most of the things you list. However, on drugs it has been repeatedly shown that there are about equal rates of drug use by blacks and whites. However, blacks are more likely to get arrested. Among those arrested, blacks more likely to get convicted. Among those convicted they get longer sentences (for the same crime). Once they have that first conviction, they have essentially no job future so it makes it much more likely they will continue in the criminal culture.
Recent example, since it appears we should cite anecdotes. Friend’s kid caught with heroin. No charges, no record. Kid brought home. Rehab was successful so far. Kid graduating school this year with job awaiting.
Steve
Yeah, the guys in this case all had their lives ruined because they couldn’t get jobs due to drug arrests.
I’d go looking for the records on all four again (names were later released for all four, and their records became public knowledge), but it’s depressing. Kidnapping and rape at 14, long strings of arrests for all kinds of crimes, and one guy keeps getting released because he is deemed mentally incompetent to stand trial. (Naturally, the thing to do in that case is put him back on the streets. And they say Florida is tough on crime.)
Also a reference in the article to my two favorite home town gangs, the Gorillas and Death Over Mercy. (Seriously, it’s impossible to respect anyone that calls himself a nigger, no matter how he sounds out the end of the word. When he also calls himself a gorilla, what’s a person to do? A lot of black folks go to a great deal of trouble to live down to the worst racial stereotypes.)
I knew lots of people in this neighborhood growing up that came from broken homes and had no prospects. Even turns out, in the course of events, that I’m one of them. None of them got into shit like this. And some of these black guys are starting with violent felonies long before they’re old enough to get jobs, or fail to get them because of some dope conviction.
But yeah, I’m sure their problems are solely because white people don’t like them.
Just like I’m sure all those Sudanese and Egyptian girls that get their genitals mutilated are victims of white oppression, too. No non-white person has ever done anything bad anywhere at anytime without some whitey making them do it. Us white people got big bad Juju, donchaknow?
” why are black neighborhoods so crime-ridden? Is The Man just locking up innocent people and letting the truly dangerous roam?”
Why are black neighborhoods so black? It’s both where they were born and where they can afford to live. Plus, how do you transcend the culture in which you were born? If being a criminal is not an aberration but a source of pride and accomplishment, then these young criminals are successful and admired in their world. We don’t like them but then they don’t care what WE think. They care deeply what their homies think of them though. That’s why they prefer four door sedans to two door coupes. The ride is not to impress their girl but to impress their crew. Bro’s before Ho’s you know.