Stop The Cycle

Stop The Cycle

~ Beau Rankin

            The statistics are clear – America’s justice system, which has roots in racism, is overwhelmingly targeting minority groups. There are a disproportionate amount of African Americans and Hispanics in prison in comparison to Whites.

Race/Ethnicity	% of US population	% of U.S. incarcerated population	National incarceration rate (per 100,000)
White (non-Hispanic)	64%	39%	450 per 100,000
Hispanic	16%	19%	831 per 100,000
Black	13%	40%	2,306 per 100,000

(http://www.prisonpolicy.org/reports/rates.html)

            The arguments our politicians come up with always seem too simple for this issue, but liberals generally agree that prison reform is necessary to progress our country and tackle the issues in our justice system. President Obama has attempted to address some of these problems by supporting law reform projects that aim to prevent minorities from facing unfair adversities in their communities. In Normal Life, Dean Spade explains the error surrounding policy reform concerning the justice system in three parts: the law reform projects only modify on paper what a law states and not its implementation, they strengthen the system and help to continue the policing of our most vulnerable citizens, and they offer validations to fund and expand flawed prison systems.

            Black transwomen specifically face the harsh reality of living short lives and high chances of incarceration among other modes of targeting including eviction and being fired due to their identity. Spade highlights black transwomen in his book to show how severe the consequences can be, resulting from our failed attempts at implementing reform in the justice system.  The reform itself could result in more policing and expand the system, so what does that leave us to do? If the system is intrinsically flawed, it must be fundamentally changed or parts of it must be eliminated entirely to make a system that can serve all citizens equally.

            Prison abolitionists do not believe that the system is flawed – they believe that it’s working exactly the way it was originally designed. The injustices began with the slaughtering and imprisonment of Native Americans and continued with the slavery of African Americans. Its face has changed, but our current justice system’s evident purpose is to control, detain, and murder the people who are perceived as threats to the power structures our society is composed of. Minority groups continue to be targeted by law enforcement and compromise most of the underserved citizens in the US. Critical Resistance is a movement representing prison abolitionists who fight to squash the criminal justice system into nothingness and let freedom create the healthy neighborhoods our communities need (http://criticalresistance.org/about/).

            Total prison abolition seems a little far-fetched, though. If we have trouble protecting transgender restroom rights, I do not foresee a collective undoing of the most influential system in the US being realistic in the near future. Is it possible that we are focusing in the wrong area? Thousands of minorities are policed via the means of drug laws and sex work laws – two things that are common among our most underserved citizens. Think about it; why don’t more people go to jail for cocaine and underage drinking versus weed possession, though we know which is more harmful? Eliminating legislature that incarcerates our most vulnerable citizens may be the key to more effective antidiscrimination laws.

           

            Many of our current laws exist in order to contain the threats of equality. Reform with a touch of law abolition may be a realistic concept because it does not completely undermine the system we have been socially trained by. There are many benefits to this mode of reform. The money in taxes saved by not sending drug addicts to jail can pay for them to receive treatment in a rehabilitation facility as well as give counseling to those who commit other crimes. The majority of people in prison are recidivistic, or repeat offenders. There are forms of help available to transform unhealthy citizens into able and working class people who have the potential to improve our communities by being employees, students, and keeping their families together.

            The architect of Portugal’s drug reform claims that it is still difficult to establish causality between the decriminalization of drugs and the reduced drug use they have seen in the country. However, we do know something – it reduces the stigmatization drug users face and allows them to seek help more readily. Countries that implement this reform are treating drug addiction like a disease, not a crime (unlike the US). The results are astounding. Would this method prove useful for other crimes? Would a prostitute benefit from psychological counseling and in turn leave the field of sex work? These are questions we must ask in order to seek a change in the justice system. After all, we know that if a rapist is released from prison after just months and possession of marijuana can land you years, something is terribly wrong.

           

            I do not propose that murderers be let loose to perpetrate more violence - we know that there are good and bad people in this world, and heinous criminals should definitely be contained. The fallacy that our erroneous justice system presents is that the bad people in our society are the underserved minorities who are incarcerated by the masses and sucked into a black hole with no hope of escape. Whether it is further reform, abolition, or a mix between the two, something must be done to change the narrative for minority groups in the US.

           

Reference:

Spade, Dean. Normal life: Administrative violence, critical trans politics, and the limits of law. Duke University Press, 2015.