DEINDUSTRIALIZATION AND CRIMINALIZATION

BY STUDENT

Every year our prison system numbers increase drastically. The United States has the largest incarcerated population in the world. Have you ever wondered why most of those numbers are Latinos and African Americans? Honestly, I have wondered this my entire life. The United States is supposed to be a country that is full of opportunities and welcoming of everyone. However, if your skin complexion isn’t lighter than a brown piece of bag, you get denied your civil rights and liberties. Why must our skin complexion make us more prone to failure and incarceration?

Imagine a missile, and we the minorities, are the walking targets. The missile may miss, but eventually it catches up. What I mean by this is that us minorities are almost always at the center of some issue. We spend all this time trying to be better, so we can get away from the identity that society assigns us with but no matter how hard we try to escape it, it eventually comes back to bite us. For instance, Trayvon Martin was simply going to the store to get some skittles and Arizona bottle. But sadly, his life was taken away due to a mistake. He supposedly fit this description of young black men who were coming into gated communities stealing. Because of the way he looked, it caused him his life. Why is it that once one Hispanic or African American does something wrong, everyone else in that category is now seen the same way? A white person can commit as many crimes and still maintain their image while ours gets tarnished. Based on data collected by the US Justice Department’s Bureau of Justice Statistics, the sentencing projects points out that “Hispanics are the fastest growing group being imprisoned”. (Morin 2008) They also found that from 1985 to 1995 the number of Hispanics in prison rose by 219%, which averages to about 12.9% each year. I feel that in many of these cases the problem is that people have many misconceptions, misconceptions that are fueled by the constant negative stereotypes of minorities in the media.

There are false ideas made to classify and justify the separation between the human races in our society, such as stereotypes. Some of the stereotypes that harm Latinos/as are that we are lazy, not educated and are only here to do the jobs everyone else won’t do. When in reality there are many of us out here striving to be our best, by getting an education and trying to make something of ourselves, but even then its still difficult. For many the wish to see their family out of the struggle leads them to low paying jobs. Which will only pay the bills and take away the possibility of an education or simply land them in jail. Like this 40-year-old ex-gangster said, “You know, in my life I’ve rarely been amazed. But I’ll tell you what amazed me is the last times I was in prison. I thought, all these guys were in there for something, you know, that they had done SOMETHING. But then people started telling me what they were in for. More than half the guys, they were in for drugs, for possession. I mean, for NOTHING. That was truly amazing, you know, to me” (Gilmore 2007). People selling drugs just to be able to have enough money to feed their families or pay the bills. It’s not that they want to be in jail, it’s just the only way they see of having a better living. But sadly it’s a blueprint that has already been made, that sets up minorities to fail. We can always challenge the way life is set up for us, but it will never change. Our skin complexion will always determine our life span and destiny.

Work Cited

·      Morin, Jose Luis. Latina/os and US prisons: Trends and Challenges. John Jay College of Criminal Justice, City University of New York, NY, 2008

·      Gilmore, Ruth. Golden Gulag: prisons, surplus, crisis, and opposition in globalizing California. University of California press, 2007.