1. M. Alexander claims that the main explanation of why so many people are sent to jail in the U.S. today is deeply wrong. Explain her argument by referring to the various examples she mentions to backup her point. (see p. 1-2)
I highly agree with this statement and Alexander has abundance of proof to back this up. For one, the War on Drugs was declared during a time period that “illegal drug use was on the decline”. Once this was declared “drug offenses (skyrocketed) especially among people of color. A second point that really stood out to me was “significant differences in the surveys….suggest that whites, particularly white youth, are more likely to engage in drug crime than people of color”; “..however when entering our nation’s prisons and jails,…(they are) overflowing with black and brown drug offenders. My third and final point, Alexander points out that many states “black men have been admitted to prison on drug charges at rates twenty to fifty times greater than those of white men” this makes a distinctive point that though the same crimes are being committed by all people of color those of color serve a heavier sentence then what is suggested for the crime committed.
2. Why is it that racial disparities in the rates of incarceration “cannot be explained by rates of drug crimes”?
The racial disparities in the rates of incarceration are simply due to racial discrimination. “In washington, D.C., our nation’s capitol, it is estimated that three out of four young black men (and nearly all those in the poorest neighborhoods) can expect to serve time in prison. Similar rates of incarceration can be found in black communities across America.” During “War on Drugs” Reagan’s media campaign established “images that seemed to confirm the worst negative racial types about impoverished inner-city residents.”; “Black “crack whores”, “crack dealers” and “crack babies”.
3. How do you understand the phrase: “the American penal system has emerged as a system of social control unparalleled in world history.”?
Unlike the other developed countries Alexander mentions, (Finland and Germany), the prison system in America is constructed drastically different, “the extent or severity of punishment is often unrelated to actual crime patterns”. The prison system in America is not designed for the reformation of the inmate serving but instead extending their sentence and designing a construct where they are more likely to serve again. America does not work to better its citizens, it does not want to minimize its incarceration rate.
