Poverty, Race, Mass Incarceration Essay

Punishment and crime seem to be modest issues. After all, if an individual commits wrongdoing, then he/she ought to suffer the penalties through punishment. Although digging more profound, it is evident that consequences and wrongdoings are multidimensional issues which come from ethnic predisposition justified by historical beliefs and perceptions about the people of color in America. There is a dual criminal justice system in America that helps in maintaining the social and economic hierarchy in the states, based on the subjugation of African Americans, in America. Criminal Behavior, media and society, actors in the criminal justice, and the public policy all play roles in the creation of hyper-incarceration of the black people. This essay gives the original basis of mass incarceration towards impoverished African Americans as community's public choice to turn out to be extra punitive.

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Lee's 'Do the Right Thing,' narrates the morality of police brutality. It was released to objections from several audiences and was publicly noted in several media outlets that it could incite African American viewers to riot (Lee & Jones, 1989). The author disparaged white critics for indicating that black viewers were not capable of restricting their actions and behavior when viewing a fictional film. Contradictory lines in the movie raise questions because one line advocates for nonviolence while another supports the use of violence for self-defense when coerced (Lee & Jones, 1989). One quote was from Martin Luther defending the civil rights program by emphasizing on the method of nonviolence, to integrate the whites with the blacks. On the other hand, Malcolm X embarked on a different approach and insisted on the use of violence whenever necessary as a means of helping the blacks to protect themselves. In the film, we see local teens opening fire hydrants and dousing the street before the men in blue intervene. Pino and Mookie begin quarreling over race when Mookie decides to challenge Pino about his negative attitudes towards the blacks. The film was dedicated to the kins of 6 victims of police mistreatment (Lee & Jones, 1989).

Coates narrative on reparations summed up rigorous social logical research and public policy on housing and poverty. The author wrote on the realities, symbols, and feelings connected to being an African American in the American culture. Coates reviews America's history and makes it clear about the racist viciousness which has been tangled into the nations' principles. He describes ways through which institutions such as the streets, the police, and the school, endangers, disciplines, and threatens to disembody women and men of the dark color (Alexander, 2015). Coates considers the physical safety of blacks' physiques on the custom in African American belief of hopefulness, and conviction in ultimate impartiality. The author's upbringing described as chaotic and physical led him to emphasize the everyday physical concerns he experienced as an individual of the black race in America's culture (Alexander, 2015).

The text in 'Between the World and Me' holds the belief that progress, faith, dreams, and hope are only systems held in the white rule and lack actual evidence for change (Alexander, 2015). Therefore, Coates does not agree with Martin Luther's confidence on the incorporation of the black society with the whites as well as Malcolm's optimism on independence. The author states his dread on the policies of code-switching to encounter the professional world, authorities, and conflicting social norms. These experiences face contrasts with 'clean' lives in the suburbs which are referred to as the dream since they are exclusionary fantasies for the whites facing empowerment, through ignorance of their history of suppression and privilege. Becoming aware of their benefits from voter suppression, segregation, and slavery could shatter that fantasy.

Coates' narrative portrays a character who labored and gained a higher social class enabling her to offer her kids with comfortable lives such as European trips and private schools. On the other hand, another story is told of a boy who was pursued and killed by a cop on a case of mistaken identity (Alexander, 2015). Coates makes use of this narrative to claim that racism and tragedies that are related also affects African Americans of means. According to Coates, the white's nation does not impeach officers of the law who take away the life of African American women and men. The nation follows a rule of mass incarceration extensively subjected towards its black citizens and regularly seems not to think about it in any way. Similarly, Lee's narrative portrays a fear that whatever positive values one gets, however hard one tries to perform well in their studies and do right things, on the streets, an individual's skin color and body will still make them vulnerable to violent arrests (Lee & Jones, 1989).

James Baldwin's poem on 'Between the World and Me,' hold that individuals who trust themselves to be of the white race, uphold righteousness and power - this carries the impression of human action into racism (Alexander, 2015). He claims that racism in the United States is so sexualized and overly harsh, this is because individuals came to settle in America after being influenced by sexual violence and thus this affects how the whites vie the black citizens (Alexander, 2015). He believes that slavery and Africans are influencers of the American history and its success. Whatever Baldwin identifies as the white's deplorable urgency for liberty, Coates on the other hand continually refers to it as a Dream (Alexander, 2015).

Even though mass imprisonment may be credited to community policy, these rules were supported after some time in light of institutionalized prejudice. The uneven detainment of blacks which followed came about due to the connection between perceptions of crime and race, and the inherent need to keep up with the American financial, social system that puts whites at the top and blacks at the bottom. Some of the criminal enhancing impacts of incarceration on poor urban societies are the violent arrest and imprisonment of black youths for drug-related crimes. These forms of detention generate an ironic 'replacement impact' which stops the crime-deterrence advantages of incapacitation (Western & Pettit, 2010).

Nonetheless, steady interest in illicit substances, detainment and mass arrest, generates employment opportunities in the business of drug trafficking and gives way for ever-growing recruitment of individuals in the illegal trade. The practice of current criminal equity is frequently oblivious towards this principle. It is contended that comprehension of criminal conduct as purely personal conduct conceals the group basis of the majority of the illegal black community action. Secondly, mass imprisonment extends the proximity of adverse social factors which add to lawbreaking in marginal groups: social disorder, alienation, poverty, inequality, and broken families. Lastly, mass incapacitation incidentally undermines prison's restraining influence.

While former president Barack Obama's ascension to power suggested that the nation made noteworthy accomplishments since the eradication of slavery, the advocation for fairness is far from over. Consequently, exemptions to each rule are ever there. Martin Luther did not put an end to his fight once the blacks acquired fairness under the judicial system since he was aware that such parity was costless and the actual price to be met by the society would be to reverse the mass incarceration of individuals which could come in providing economic equality. Advocates and researchers following the effect of mass detainment discovered various pulverizing results in impoverished Black societies (Western & Pettit, 2010). The most recognized of the so-termed 'collateral damage' is the extensive radical marginalization of ex-felons and felons. The adverse effects of imprisonment, even amid individuals with poor financial prospects to start with, relates to the active negative perceptions employers hold towards job hunters with criminal profiles.

Several societies tried to gain benefits from mass incarceration through imprisonment as a technique for development of the economy, making the system in prison eerily same to the slavery system. With the majority of the reported economic and social expenses of mass imprisonment (such as the devastation of the family unit, the rise in the racial discrepancy in HIV/AIDS, and more unexceptional labor market prospects) (Western & Pettit, 2010). To fix the harm that has been done, and to move past our ethnic history, we should as a country retrain each other on race; and after that, as a general public, focus on putting resources into social projects concentrating on youths at risk. We should likewise guarantee various variations in criminal equity experts with a goal of accomplishing the financial equity. Even though mass detainment measures have as of late gotten a lot of consideration (because of imprisonment winding up restrictively exorbitant), failing to discourse the legacy of racism inherited from our ancestors and its ties to economic oppression can only lead to more racism-oriented societies.

The antiquity of economic injustice and racial inequality in the U.S has generated enduring challenges for its citizens. More must be undertaken to improve our joint objective for equal fairness for everyone. The historical background of racism, which additionally connects to the olden times of perceptions of crime and race, has driven society to fight racial, financial balance by applying the criminal equity framework (incarceration) (Western & Pettit, 2010). Rather than lessening racial differences through strong interests in social projects, (for example, employment, job training, and education, which carry more extended benefits for the public). The community decides to apply incarceration as a safety program that deals with the deprived individuals, mainly since the poor are unequally non-white individuals. America has not accomplished enough actions to recognize the legacy of racial segregation, lynching, slavery, and genocide. For this reason, the black people in the community are impoverished disproportionately, disadvantaged, and marginalized. The criminal justice system is infested with racism, and a conjecture of guiltiness, as well as dangerousness, has resulted in unfair police viciousness against the white and black in the society (Western & Pettit, 2010).

Incarceration can reduce economic prospects in some ways. The situations of imprisonment promote behaviors and habits which are poorly matched with the schedules of ordinary performances. Time spent in prisons, means time off the labor force, reducing the experience that an incapacitated individual can gain out of work with a comparison to their unincapacitated equals. The discrimination which comes with being convicted for committing an offense also repels employers with a preference for clean profiles in the employees. The burdens of incapacitation on mothers who are left to be breadwinners for their families in the black community relates to separation and divorce. Additionally, the enforced separation of imprisonment and the post-release impacts on economic opportunities leave formerly incapacitated parents less equipped to offer financial help for their offspring's (Western & Pettit, 2010).

Explaining the dehumanizing and brutal institution of slavery in U.S, its supporters came up with a fable of genetic variance which stated that the whites had moral and intellectual superiority to the black people (Western & Pettit, 2010). According to this description, the African American's ultimate and near un...