Anyone who is familiar with the US prison system, whether from the inside or outside, is well aware of the glaring racial disparities among the prison population. Now, law makers, correction officials, non-profit organizations and concerned citizens are banding together in an effort to correct this controversial problem.
America prides itself on being "The Land of the Free,” and in many ways it is, except in one area. The US has the highest rate of incarceration in the world with over 2,380,000 people behind bars. With only five percent of this world’s population, America accounts for twenty-five percent of the world’s prison population.
No one is more aware of this than the African American and Hispanic population living in America. According to a recent Inter Press Service news release, if you are an African American male living in the US, you have a 32 percent chance of being incarcerated at some point in your life. If you are Hispanic, the odds are 17 percent. A white male’s prospect is six percent. While making up just 12 percent of the population, African Americans make up 42 percent of death row inmates. African American women also make up the highest female prison population with an incarceration rate four times as high as white women.
The IPS news release suggests reasons for this gross disparity, beginning with racial profiling. The vast majority of police departments now have standards in place that greatly reduce, if not eliminate, racial profiling in their departments. However, before these standards were implemented, racial profiling was rampant, and the prison system is filled with those who were caught up in it. Racial profiling still exists in some places, and that adds to minorities being arrested and sentenced more often than the non-minority population. African Americans also receive sentences that are more severe and longer, according to IPS.
Cocaine laws are another factor that is responsible for the higher incarceration rates of African Americans. Although African Americans make up only 25 percent of crack cocaine users, they account for 81 percent of those sentenced for crack cocaine offenses in 2007.
Senator Jim Webb (D-Va.) has been at the forefront in attempting to correct racial disparities in the prison system. According to Webb, “America’s criminal justice system has deteriorated to the point that it is a national disgrace.”
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