 By Judge Greg Mathis
According to a new study released by prison reform advocacy group The Sentencing Project, Black Americans are incarcerated at nearly six times the rate of whites. The news isn’t so shocking: African Americans have always known that justice is not blind. We know the system sees skin color and punishes black – and brown – skin disproportionately.
What is shocking, however, is the affect the current rates of incarceration will eventually have on our community: If trends continue, one in three Black males born today will end up in prison. The criminal justice system has routinely sought out, institutionalized, and attempted to break the spirits of our men and, increasingly, our women. When it comes to Black folk, there is no justice in the system, it’s just criminal, and it’s time for a change.
More than 60 percent of the two million people in America’s jails and prisons are racial and ethnic minorities. One in every eight Black men in their 20s is in prison or jail on any given day. The racial disparities in incarceration are not indicative of some predisposition to crime in people of color. Rather, these inequalities are a reflection of failed social policies and economic and racial oppression. The U.S. government has over the years – intentionally or unintentionally – created a system where people of color struggle to find decent jobs and affordable housing, and where they lack access to a quality education. Lack of access creates hopelessness, drugs and alcohol are used to falsely ease the burdens, and addiction fuels criminal activity. Granted, this is not the case for all incarcerated people of color. But, for most, it’s not too far from the truth.
If the country’s penchant to incarcerate people of color on a mass scale persists, we can expect to see families weakened. Children with parents in the criminal justice system are at risk. According to the U.S. Department of Justice, without intervention, as many as 70 percent of these children will themselves end up in prison. Real reform is needed. Without an acknowledgement and analysis of the racial disparities in arrest, sentencing, and incarceration, the criminal justice system will be, in effect, creating its next generation of prisoners.
In five Midwestern and Northeastern states - Iowa, Vermont, New Jersey, Connecticut, and Wisconsin - African Americans are incarcerated at more than 10 times the rate of whites. Change should begin here.
Perhaps a federal task force, one that examines arrests and sentencing in these five areas, using a racial and ethnic lens, should be created. The lessons learned there could be applied to other states. Laws also need to be changed. Mandatory minimum laws need to be done away with and judicial discretion needs to be restored. Judges will then be able to hand down sentences based on past criminal history and other factors, using creative sentencing to ensure low-level offenders get the rehabilitative support they need.
It took years to build our current racially-biased criminal justice system. We cannot repair it over night. But, we can take big steps in the direction of reform.
Editor’s note: Judge Greg Mathis is national vice president of Rainbow PUSH and a national board member of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference.
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