From The Harvard Political Review:
At any given time, nearly 2 million individuals are incarcerated in the United States. Despite being a nation that prides itself on ideals of freedom and liberty, the U.S. holds the highest prison population in the world. Rooted in the legacy of slavery, intensified by the War on Drugs, and sustained by deeply embedded racial inequities, the U.S. legal structure has given rise to a sprawling system of mass incarceration— one that drives economic gain at the expense of society’s most vulnerable.
America’s Carceral Past
To fully understand the problematic depth of the American justice system, we have to examine its historical roots. Though the foundation of the nation’s incarceration system is widely debated, many scholars argue that the system’s roots can be traced back to the legacy of slavery in the United States.
While slavery provided the basis for many systemic racial inequities in the early decades of America’s founding, many believed those inequalities would begin to dissolve following the end of the Civil War in 1865. As the 13th Amendment was introduced, proudly announcing that “Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States,” many believed America had begun its path towards social and racial equity. However, the exception clause of the amendment, which allows involuntary servitude as a “punishment for crime,” would only serve to perpetuate racial divides in the South. Continue reading >>>
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