The New American Apartheid

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Modern prisoners occupy the lowest rungs on the social class ladder, and they always have. The modern prison system (along with local jails) is a sort of ghetto or poorhouse reserved primarily for the unskilled, the uneducated, the powerless and, in increasing numbers it is being reserved for racial minorities, especially blacks, which is why we are calling this system the New American Apartheid.  This is the same segment of American society that have seen their incomes drastically reduced and have become more involved in drugs and the subsequent violence that extends from the lack of legitimate means of goal attainment (Fowles and Merva, 1996).

An argument could certainly be made that blacks, especially males, are superfluous and expendable in American society (that is, not really needed for corporate profits).  With the constant corporate downsizing and deindustrialization during the past couple of decades came the elimination of millions of occupations that used to lift minorities out of poverty.  Thus, some form of social control has been needed.  The criminal justice system currently fills this need (Parenti, 1999).  Consider these facts:

  • whereas in 1986, 5.2% of all blacks were either in jail or in prison (versus only 0.9% of all whites), in 2001 (the latest figures available) this percentage stood at 8.9% (versus only 1.4% of all whites); for white males these percentages were 1.7% in 1986 and 2.6% in 2001, compared to 9.9% and 16.6% of black males respectively (see Table 6-3); 
  • the total incarceration rate (in prisons and jails) for black males in 1980 was 3,544 (versus 528 for white males); black females had a rate of 183 (versus 27 for white females); in 2002 the rate for black males was 4,810 and for females it was 349 (versus 649 for white males and 68 for white females) (Kurki, 1999; Harrison and Karberg, 2003); 
  • in 1990 one in four black males in their 20's was under some form of control within the criminal justice system; in 1995 the percentage had increased to one-third (Mauer, 1995); 
  • the jail incarceration rate for blacks stood at 368 in 1985 (73 for whites); in 2002 the rate was 740 (147 for whites) (Bureau of Justice Statistics, 1999a; Harrison and Karberg, 2003); 
  • the number of blacks incarcerated for drug offenses alone increased by 799% between 1986 and 1997, versus a more modest increase of 205% for whites (Kurki, 1999); whereas in 1983 the number of those in prison on drug charges was virtually the same for whites, blacks and Hispanics (less than10,000 each), by the end of the 1990s more than 90,000 blacks compared to just over 40,000 whites and about 20,000 Latinos were incarcerated on drug convictions (Travis, 2002);
  • A Human Rights Watch report noted that in 1991 the rate of incarceration for black men for drug offenses was 482 per 100,000, compared to only 36 per 100,000 for white men.  Put somewhat differently, that's one out of every 207 black, versus one out of every 2778 white men; the report also noted that nationally, 62 percent of all imprisoned drug offenders were black males. In some states these percentages were as high as 80 or 90!  This is despite the well-publicized fact that there are few racial differences as far as illegal drug use is concerned (Human Rights Watch, 2000);
  • 13% of all adult black men are disenfranchised as a result of a felony conviction (1.4 million; one-third of all disenfranchised adults); in some states the percentage is more than 30 (e.g., Alabama and Florida), while in many more states over 20% are disenfranchised (The Sentencing Project/Human Rights Watch, 1998). 

These are just some of the horrendous numbers that describe the plight of blacks in this country.  While the "old" apartheid of residential segregation (Massey and Denton, 1993) continues unabated, a “new” apartheid has risen along side of it.  It is apparent that the criminal justice system has been engaged in a systematic attack on blacks and that going to jail or prison has become a common event in the lives of millions of racial minorities.  The “new American apartheid” is the modern penal system.

Full article: http://www.sheldensays.com/Res-five.htm

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