What is Mass Incarceration, and how has it evolved? What role does the war of drugs play on the state of mass incarceration today? Why are people of color, particularly black men, at a higher risk of being incarcerated? What laws are similar to the Jim Crow laws?
Responses
What is Mass Incarceration, and how has it evolved?
Mass Incarceration is “The unique the U.S. has locked up a vast population in federal and state prisons, as well as local jails.”
Over the past 40 years, mass incarceration numbers have increased by 500%.
The United States has about 5% of the world’s population but holds 25% of people in their jails
The U.S. rate of incarceration is at least 5 to 10 times higher than in Western Europe and other democracies
In 2010, blacks were incarcerated at six times and Hispanics at three times the rate for non-Hispanic whites.
What role does the war of drugs play on the state of mass incarceration today?
The war on drugs was launched in the early 1970s, and around 10 years later, Reagan put that war into existence.
The state and federal prison populations were fairly stable until the war on drugs began.
In 1980, about 41,000 people were incarcerated for drug crimes.
In 2014, that number was 488,400 {a 1,000 percent increase}
In 2013, 58% of all inmates were Black or Hispanic.
White people are more likely than black people to sell drugs and about as likely to consume them
But, black people are 3.6 times more likely than white people to be arrested for selling drugs and 2.5 times more for drug possession.
Why are people of color, particularly black men, at a higher risk of being incarcerated?
In 2014, African American men constituted 34% of the total of 6.4 million prisons in the US.