The Implications of the Prison Industrial Complex on Black America

Part I: The ways in which the criminal justice system maintains second class citizenship

"The more politicians threaten to stop crime and imprison criminals, the more crime we have. The newspapers never fail to describe a black defendant as such. Seldom if ever is a white defendant so described. Given the prevailing climate of thought, or reaction on the subject, most people will assume one charged with crime is black.... None of this should be read as a defense of black criminals or their crimes. What to do about crime and criminals is the imponderable that confronts both me and the system. It is clear that prisons have not provided a satisfactory answer, nor have learned criminologists. Why have prisons become so disproportionately black and Hispanic in the last few years? Why is their population composed of the poor?"

-----Judge Bruce Wright,

Black Robes, White Justice:

Why our Legal System Doesn't Work For Blacks

This 3-part series seeks to examine the ways in which the United States system of criminal justice, policing, prisons and sentencing policy plays a role in reinforcing a permanent underclass existing within the African American community. The Black community is only one of numerous communities negatively impacted by the Prison Industrial Complex (PIC), yet it remains the most disparately impacted and destabilized community in relation to the way America addresses its social problems through crime, control and incarceration.

The Prison Industrial Complex, herein referred to as the PIC represents a myriad of intersecting institutions including jails, prisons, the courts, and sentencing that all connect in support of maintaining the socio-economic and political status quo. Simply said, the way in which "crime" is defined, addressed, and discussed is done so in a way that legitimizes current inequalities and conditions that regulate the access and manner in which the African American communities can access the socio-economic and political mainstream of American Society.

Today, over 2.3 million individuals are imprisoned within the United States and over half of them are African Americans who only make up 12 percent of the general population. In many cases, if this type of disparity were to occur, major human rights groups would issue a declarative statement read before the United Nations regarding the violation of human rights within that nation.

A few activists have traveled that route only to find their pleas continually falling on deaf ears. The impact of the prison system on Black America remains the invisible crisis that wasn't. It's only Black people and they commit more crime-right? Then again how do we define "crime," and which crimes are punishable by prison or by simply paying a fine?

One of the things that the organization Critical Resistance argues is that the prison system/PIC cannot be rehabilitated. That in this sense we should throw out the baby with the bathwater and I agree that the whole way in which we address crime has not worked and that other solutions that actually make our communities safer do exist.

In relation to the Black community the criminal justice system aka the Prison Industrial Complex has not maintained a blind eye, but conveniently kept one eye open as African Americans are penalized more for the same crimes, prosecuted more, given harsher sentences than whites charged with the same crimes, and targeted by police more despite no real evidence that African Americans are more criminal than any other group regardless of the destructive socio-economic environments that low-income communities are forced to live in. Socio-economic conditions may factor in the type of crimes committed not necessarily in the commission of crimes.

African Americans constitute almost 12 percent of the general population and only 13 percent of drug users yet 57 percent of those incarcerated in state prisons from a drug crime. Whites in turn make up nearly 70 percent of the general population and 68 percent of drug users but only 23 percent of those locked up in state prisons from drug crimes. In racial profiling studies done in both Texas and New York, highlighting police stops and searches for illegal contraband-whites were more likely to have illegal contraband than African Americans.

We all know the long sick history of mandatory minimum sentences for possessing 5 grams of crack compared to 500 grams of cocaine. What is relatively un-discussed is the fact that 97 percent of all federal crack offenders prosecuted between 1992-4 were racial minorities or the fact that not one-not one white person was prosecuted by federal authorities in Los Angeles from 1988-1994.

From targeting to apprehension to processing to sentencing Blacks suffer more at the hands of the criminal justice system in a way that is so disparate it can be looked at in no other way than as policy. According to a study by Building Blocks for Youth, a Black Youth with no record of incarceration charged with a drug offence is still 48 times more likely than a White youth of the same background to be sent to juvenile prison. If the White youth is sentenced, he is normally given a shorter sentence.

It would be enough to address the current disparities within the criminal justice system, which only mirror other aspects of American society. Still that would be a job within itself. Unfortunately, these series of articles are not simply to challenge current inequities within the system and its ongoing racial bias. The purpose of these articles is to change the whole perspective of the reader regarding how we view crime and punishment and to look at the creation of an alternative way of addressing "crime" that has at its roots justice, rehabilitation, and reciprocity.

The current prison industrial complex as it stands represents an extension of the status quo whereas the top 5 percent of the wealthy control the majority of wealth in the nation. It's the trickle down theory of politics, where we determine who gets what, how much and who gets none. An extension of the belief or policy that says its okay for thousands of young Black or Latinos to murder each other annually, okay for unemployment rates in the Hood to be closer to the age of young men unable to find employment than the unemployment rate in white communities. This is a policy that says its okay for the violence, unemployment, faulty education, lack of opportunities, and no healthcare to exist in these Black and poor communities-were okay with that. We won't invest in front end opportunities but we will spend billions annually to incarcerate these young men and women-no to books and education but yes to bars and incarceration is the likely motto.

From the time Africans were first brought to these shores, the police state and criminal justice systems was a means to control them and served as an extension of the ruling class to maintain the status quo. This is the history of the prison industrial complex and not much has changed.

The Black community continues to be in a war with the prison industrial complex and the way it remains structured as an extension of social policy. This war began shortly after the ending another war which unintentionally gave a momentary lapse of first class citizenship to blacks-the Civil War. Shortly after Blacks gained measures of equality, foes to our progress began to utilize the criminal justice system as a means deny as oppose providing justice.

Part II in this series will examine the historical application of crime and punishment as a means of socially controlling Blacks.

From September 26-30th, Critical Resistance will convene CR10, its 10th annual conference in Oakland, California to bring together, advocates, activists, families, scholars, and others to discuss alternatives to incarceration and the ways of dismantling the Prison Industrial Complex.

For more information visit www.criticalresistance.org

A journalist and regular contributor to the Black Press, Malik Russell is the former communications director with the Justice Policy Institute and communications coordinator for Critical Resistance's 10th Anniversary Conference-CR10. The views expressed in this series are his and not necessarily those of any organization.