But set aside the conditions of these facilities and take a closer look at the picture.
One would see that most of the inmates held in these prisons are Black men, who experts suggest make up more than half of the nation’s two million incarcerated people.
Social reformers, human rights activists and former inmates all have their own opinions as to why so many Black men are in prison.
Many agree there are several factors that have worked to create a criminal underclass of Black men who are in and out of prison.
But at the root of it all lies the subculture of the streets, where a twisted credibility and respect are earned by criminal acts – by being “gangsta.”
Specialists on Black incarceration also list poverty, the demise of the Black family, a lack of jobs that pay a livable wage and inadequate educational opportunities, as factors that are only seen on the surface of the problem.
Where thuggery is born
Dr. Elijah Anderson firmly believes the street subculture, where many young Black men interact, is in fact the root of the problem of the rising numbers of them being incarcerated.
“The poor Black male operates in an environment where his childhood is essentially criminalized,” said Anderson, the Charles and William L. Day Distinguished Professor of the social sciences and professor of sociology at the University of Pennsylvania.
Anderson recently traced the development of this violent subculture in his book, “Code of the Streets.”
“He goes to a school where he is greeted by metal detectors,” he said. “Any altercation is classified as aggravated assault, so he gets a record for an offense that a white male doesn’t. It’s important in the street culture that you have to do things that defy authority. You have to smoke weed, drink a ‘40.’ You have to swagger. because street cred is so important.
“Now when these young men go to apply for a job, they can’t pass a urine test because they’ve been smoking weed,” Anderson said. “These young men get locked out of those opportunities. So many of them have said to me, ‘Why is it so hard for me to get a job, but so easy for me to sell drugs?’”
Dennis Nicholson, an inmate at the State Correctional Institute in Waymart, lived the street life and is now paying the price for it.
He is has served 15 years of a 20-to-40-year sentence for his participation in a murder. Nicholson said the Black community has not heeded the signs that its youths are hurting and confused.
“Why are our young people committing so many heinous crimes?” he asked. “The code of the streets doesn’t allow us to tell the police anything about what we have seen or heard, no matter how terrible the act.
“As a community we have turned a blind eye to the signs that our children are hurting and are confused about what life is all about,” Nicholson said. “It’s simply, ‘I don’t have a job, education or a home, but I want a Benz and I will get it by any means necessary.’ I feel for today’s youth and it pains me every time I see another young man walk through these prison walls with a 15- or 20-year sentence hanging around their necks.”
Anderson said gun violence, drug trafficking, the social ostracizing of Black men and the street subculture have all contributed to creating a criminal underclass composed of Black men.
“This is a very complicated situation,” he said. “I’ve gone into the communities and spoken with the people in the ’hood, and what I have found is this: We have a very different situation operating from when I grew up. There was a time when there was a strong industrial community among our people.”
Anderson said at one time even Blacks who were not very well educated could make a fairly good living.
With the advent of the civil rights movement, there developed a sense of militancy, which culminated in the “Black identity.”
Anderson said that because of the militancy of the civil rights movement, the government responded by either integrating African-Americans into the mainstream or eliminating the most violent individuals.
But in the process there was a segment of the Black community that didn’t really benefit from the social programs that followed in the wake of the civil rights movement.
“The whole system was involved,” Anderson said. “It was then that programs like affirmative action came into being and Blacks, to a degree, were included into mainstream America. But while that was happening, the economy was also changing. We moved from an industrial base into a service-oriented economy. The industrial jobs went overseas, which resulted in more poor Blacks. There was a split in the Black community; those who had benefited from the social programs and those who didn’t.”
Anderson said those African-Americans who had been left behind became more suspicious of the white society. Those persons essentially developed what has become the street culture of today.
“There are people in the Black community who devalue education because they confuse it with the white culture,” he said. “In the inner city there has developed a division between those African-Americans who are decent and those who are street, and both are living side by side. This minority is deep into the street culture, and it’s strong in the Black community.”
The subculture of the streets, according to Anderson, has its own rules and code of conduct, which is in direct opposition to those of the rest of society.
In a bizarre twist of reality, the same actions that convey respect in the streets are the very things which fuel the high number of Blacks behind bars and the high recidivism that accompanies it, he said.
“On the streets, any insult has to be responded to, which usually ends violently,” Anderson said. “If you can’t get a job you either hustle, steal, beg or sell drugs. This means that eventually you’re going to go to jail. The streets and the prisons go back and forth. What you see in prisons you see on the streets.”
Dual systems of fairness
Along with the violent subculture of the streets is a justice system that, whether by design or mistake, has widened the ethnic divisions in America.
Black men are incarcerated at a higher rate than their white counterparts and, according to experts, serve longer sentences in prison.
A report published by the nonprofit organization The Sentencing Project, entitled “Reducing Racial Disparity in the Criminal Justice System,” suggested that America’s unfair judicial system has promoted mistrust among people of color who have been marginalized.
“America has become the most racially diverse and wealthiest nation on the planet,” the report stated. “(But) our gains in economic prosperity are not uniformly shared across society as whole segments of American communities have become marginalized – seemingly unimportant to society at large.
“One fundamental aspect of this marginalization is the disparate treatment of persons of color, which occurs incrementally across the entire spectrum of America’s criminal justice system,” the report said. “This disparity, rarely a result of clear-cut decisions to provide unfair treatment, threatens to produce in communities in every city and state an unhealthy and counterproductive distrust of the criminal justice system. And a society that cannot trust its institutions to protect the people and treat them fairly cannot effectively control the crime that we rightly fear.”
Defense attorney and social activist Michael Coard said there is no question in his mind there are two systems of justice in America.
In his view, the reasons so many Black men are in prison are the residue of slavery and the current injustices of racism inherent in the justice system.
“First, let me say this: When you talk about the imprisonment of Black men you’re talking about law enforcement,” Coard said. “In America you get as much justice as you can pay for. If you can pay for a lot, you get a lot, and if you can’t, then you go to jail. So if you’re Black and in trouble with the law, you’re probably poor and in trouble with the law.”
He noted there are more Black men in prison today than there are in America’s colleges. He added that one in three Black men ages 20 to 29 has either been in prison or is on parole.
“Now understanding that, you have to conclude that our men are either genetically predisposed to criminal activity or are suffering from the residue of slavery and the current injustices of racism,” Coard said. “I’m a Black man and I’ve never been in trouble with the law, I’m not genetically predisposed to crime, so we must conclude the latter.”
Anderson agreed.
“People in the Black community believe there are two systems of justice, and while that may not be objectively true, it’s true in the minds of the people,” he said. “They think it’s true. Contributing to this belief is a weak civil authority that has failed the Black community. For many people, street justice has taken the place of the civil authority.”
A state of emergency?
The dynamics of the street subculture and the crimes that result from them have resulted in the arrests and prosecutions of a high number of Black men, according to sociologists.
Researchers with Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International and the United States Department of Justice suggest Black men today are being incarcerated at a rate higher than that of any other ethnic group in the country.
Even worse, to those young Black men who have embraced the subculture of the streets, incarceration is viewed as a rite of passage that imparts credibility and respect among their peers.
“These young people walk through these halls, and instead of crying and being ashamed and devastated that their lives are forever marred because they have harmed or taken the life of an innocent person, they front for their homies and take some demented, false joy in these pitiful stripes, which they believe are honorably earned,” Nicholson said.
The inmate said he had a strong message for any young Black man who thinks prison bestows credibility.
“I can hear these same so-called gangstas on the phones whining to their mothers and fathers, sisters, brothers, girlfriends and homies, pleading for money, visits, letters, pictures and most of all, help in getting them out of this place,” Nicholson said. “I know the regrets, pains and disappointments of being responsible for the death of someone – being responsible for causing your family pain. Despite what cons may say when they come home, I know that life in prison sucks. This isolation brings tears to my eyes every day for so many reasons.”
While it can be debated that the disproportionately high number of Blacks who are either incarcerated or on parole is a conspiracy to cripple the African-American community, the actual numbers are no theory.
According to the United States Department of Justice, African-Americans currently constitute 12 percent of the national population but 44 percent of the prison population, which means 5 percent of Black America is behind bars.
Bringing that high percentage into a local context, the Philadelphia prison system’s current figures show that 70 percent of the incarcerated population is Black.
“Currently within the Philadelphia prison system, the ethnic breakdown is about 18 percent white, 10 percent Latino and 74 percent African-American,” said Leon King, prisons commissioner. “And yes, that number is disproportionate to our numbers in the population of the city.”
Even more disturbing, according to a Department of Justice report entitled “Lifetime Likelihood of Going to State or Federal Prison,” one in four African-American men will enter prison at least once, compared to only one in 23 white males having the same experience.
The report indicates that if current trends continue, an estimated 28.5 percent of Black men are expected to serve a state or federal prison sentence.
In seven states – Connecticut, Illinois, Iowa, Minnesota, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin – African-Americans are incarcerated at more than 13 times the rate of whites.
But violent crime is not the primary reason so many Black men are finding themselves behind bars.
Alison Parker, acting director of U.S. programs for Human Rights Watch, said the reason for the high rate of incarceration for African-Americans can be laid squarely on mandatory sentencing laws, which have adversely affected the Black community.
“Since 1980, the national prison population has tripled,” she said. “We looked at the high rate of incarceration and drug convictions. We found that nationally, 63 percent are Black. Drug offenses and other policies such as three strikes laws and mandatory sentencing have exacerbated the racial divide.”
An analysis published by Human Rights Watch entitled “Punishment and Prejudice” says a Black person is 8 times more likely to be in prison than a white person.
The analysis concluded that among individual states, there are even more extraordinary racial disparities in incarceration rates.
“The penalties for dealing crack cocaine are stiffer than if you’re dealing powdered cocaine,” Parker said. “These penalties have disproportionately affected Blacks. You see, the war on drugs focused on the street dealers, not the leaders. Why prosecutors tend to focus on the street dealers and not the leaders in the drug trade is simple; the leaders have information to trade. That helps avoid long sentences and sometimes prosecution altogether.”
She added that individual law enforcement authorities may engage in racial profiling and that people who are poor have a difficult time in getting adequate legal representation.
“Racism and discrimination, coupled with economic disadvantages, result in the targeting of minorities,” Parker said.
Another recent report published by Human Rights Watch, entitled “Incarcerated America,” confirms Parker’s assertion that among the main reasons so many Black men are in prison are law enforcement policies that support mandatory sentencing.
“Contrary to popular perception, violent crime is not responsible for the quadrupling of the incarcerated population in the United States since 1980,” the report stated. “The exploding prison population has been propelled by public policy changes that have increased the use of prison sentences as well as the length of time served, through mandatory minimum sentencing, ‘three strikes’ laws, and reductions in the availability of parole or early release. Perhaps the single greatest force behind the growth of the prison population has been the national war on drugs.”
A 2003 report issued by the Justice Policy Institute lends credibility to Anderson’s arguments that the high rate of incarceration in the African-American community has divided America even more, in effect producing a subculture in which a term in prison has become typical and acceptable.
“For low-education African-American men, prison has become a common life event, even more common than employment or military service,” said Princeton University’s Bruce Western, a co-author of the report. “By cleaving off poor Black men from the mainstream of American life, the prison boom has left us more divided as a nation.”
Marc Mauer, executive director of The Sentencing Project, said, “We know from information supplied by the United States Department of Justice that, based on current trends, one in three Black males can expect to go to jail at least once in their lifetime. “Now, if these were white males, it would be declared a national emergency. The president would marshal all of the country’s resources to do everything possible to reverse that trend. Because these are Black males, because these are men of color, people say, ‘Oh well, that’s terrible.’ Because these are Black men there isn’t the same political urgency to do something about it.” |
