DEINDUSTRIALIZATION AND CRIMINALIZATION

THE FATE OF RACE WITHIN A PRISON SYSTEM

BY ZM

Have you ever walked into a space; a store, a school, or even your neighborhood, and felt the weight of a racial stigma that “defines” you? Have you felt that no matter what you did, the color of your skin would always play an effective roleinto the ongoing oppression that impacts people of color today. Throughout the course of American history, people of color, specifically African Americans, have been negatively subjected to a social structure that has an interconnected nature of social categorizations such as race, sex, class, and many more. This infrastructure of inequality takes on a clear distinctive demographic; a demographic that correlates mainly to people of color, and is then implemented within the United States prison system. In this blogpost, I will argue with the conditions of the American prison system and the barbaric operations towards African Americans and reveal the question of why African Americans are more likely to end up in prison than a White American?

Growing up in New York City as an Afro Latino male, I have seen this structural inequality in the relation between police enforcement and young African Americans. Statistically, the United States is known to have the largest prison population of any developed nation. Our prison systems were created for the justification of punishing a person for their crimes, but what happens when our prisons become corrupt and wrongfully throw people, specially people of color, in jail for false judgments and racial ignorance and fear? In the article Prison Fixby Ruth Wilson Gilmore, Gilmore illustrates how “black youth were twice as likely as white youths to be arraigned in children court, more likely to be found guilty and were twice as likely to be sentenced to over five year in an institution due to the racial ideologies of inferior and superior figures.(pg. 91)” This corresponds to the actuality of how and why prisons were created; in order to preserve a racial hierarchy that oppresses people of color. A clear representation of this racial hierarchy is perfectly stated in James Baldwin poem A Letter to my Nephew, in which he states “You were born into a society which spelled out with brutal clarity and in as many ways as possible that you were a worthless human being. You were not expected to aspire to excellence. You were expected to make peace with mediocrity.” With that, institutional racism proceeds to dictate how we live our lives and raise our children, along with dehumanizing people of color with a capitalist infrastructure known as the prison systems.

From unsanitary jail cells, to corrupt correctional officers and even murders, prisons have shown the discriminatory treatment towards inmates. During the start of prisons, many inmates were denied their basic human rights, specifically after the 13th amendment. The 13^thamendment was the abolishment of slavery. This abolishment changed a social economical structure within a capitalist society, which then formed a new one. The adequate life of safety, rehabilitation and healthcare were not met for inmates in prison. For instance, in the chapter Prison Fixby Ruth Wilson Gilmore, Gilmore explains how the “CDC; Center for Disease Control and Prevention, wiped rehabilitation from the books of prison, resulting in many gang violence, mental health issues, and the distrust of liability towards the government.” With the consumption of inmates piling on top of one another at a rapid speed, we understand that there is and always had been, a problem. Instead of teaching inmates a tool to rehabilitate into society, government officials lock them away and treat them like animals, leaving them with? unrepaired damages. Not only do prisons treat their inmates poorly but they have a bias eye for determining who goes to jail and who doesn’t. 

Bibliography:

Baldwin, James, and James Baldwin. “A Letter to My Nephew.” Progressive.org, Progressive.org, 1 Dec. 1962, progressive.org/magazine/letter-nephew/.

GILMORE, RUTH WILSON. GOLDEN GULAG: Prisons, Surplus, Crisis, and Opposition in Globalizing California, Second ... Edition. UNIV OF CALIFORNIA Press, 2018.

MUHAMMAD, KHALIL GIBRAN. CONDEMNATION OF BLACKNESS: Race, Crime, and the Making of Modern Urban America, with a New Preface. HARVARD UNIV Press, 2019.