A Million Blacks Behind Bars – and Still Counting

A recent report by the Justice Policy Institute, a Washington D.C. public policy think tank, that more than two million persons are now behind bars in America got little media attention. And with good reason. The numbers are embarrassing and disgraceful and proof that politicians and the much of the public see incarceration as the only answer to the nation's social ills. But what got no media attention is that African-Americans now make up more than half of those imprisoned. While the chance of a white male being locked up is 1 in 25, for black males the odds soar to 1 in 3. Six of the ten states that have the greatest number of prisoners are states in the Deep South. They also have the highest percentage of blacks in their population. The ten states that imprison the fewest persons have the sparsest numbers of blacks.The social and political havoc that putting one in three black men in prison wreaks on black families and communities is staggering. It insures that more children are raised in impoverished single-female led homes. They will likely attend segregated, crumbling public schools. It permanently bars many black men from voting because of draconian laws that severely restrict the rights of ex-convicts to vote. This diminishes the political power of the black communities. It drastically increases health risks and costs in black communities since many prisoners are released with chronic medical afflictions particularly HIV/AIDS. The habitual reasons given for criminalizing practically an entire generation of young blacks is that they are poor, crime-prone, and lack family values.The more compelling reason can be summed up in four words: racially-biased drug laws. Many law enforcement and politicians argue that the laws arent biased. But what else can they be called when reports and studies by the Justice Department, the U.S. Sentencing Commission, as well as universities and foundations confirm that:* Far more whites use and deal drugs including crack cocaine than blacks.* The overwhelming majority of those prosecuted in federal courts for drug possession and sale (mostly small amounts of crack cocaine) and given stiff mandatory sentences of ten years to life are African-American.* Only five percent of those sentenced to jail terms are major dealers.* There is a massive and deep disparity in how blacks (crack cocaine) and whites (powdered cocaine) are being sentenced by the federal and state courts.The scapegoating of blacks for America's crime and drug problem began in the 1980s. The assault by Republican conservatives on job, income, and social service programs, a crumbling educational system and industrial shrinkage dumped more blacks on the streets with no where to go. Some chose guns, gangs, crime and drugs. The big cuts in welfare, social services, and skills training programs under the Clinton administration have dumped not only more young black males but more black females on the streets. Much of the media instantly turned the drug problem into a black problem and played it up big in news stories and features. Even as crime has plunged the media continues to feed the public a bloated diet of crime sensationalist news. Many Americans scared stiff of the crime and drug crisis continue to give their blessing to drug sweeps, random vehicle checks, marginally legal searches and seizures, evictions from housing projects and apartments. When it comes to law enforcement practices in the ghettos and barrios, the denial of civil liberties protections, due process and privacy make a mockery of the criminal justice system to many blacks and Latinos.Clinton drug czar Barry McCaffrey who has mightily defended the administration's policy in the past has shifted gears and now calls the disastrous drug policy bad drug policy and bad law enforcement. Yet McCaffrey is stone silent on the shamefully high numbers of blacks imprisoned by the Clinton administrations bad drug policy. Even though Clinton and Attorney General Janet Reno call for the elimination of disparities in the drug sentencing laws they have done little to prod Congress to amend the laws.The way to change bad drug policy into good policy and good law enforcement is not to imprison thousands more Americans for mostly petty, drug related crimes. The answer is to shift billions from prisons to programs for drug education, treatment and prevention, do away with the mandatory sentencing law, restore sentencing discretion to judges, target high level dealers for prosecution, and end drug profiling and random stops of black and Latino motorists.Most importantly public officials must come clean with themselves and the public and admit that billions are being squandered yearly on a deeply flawed, racially-tinged drug policy. If theres no change in that policy the next report from the Justice Policy Institute will reveal that the majority of those jammed into Americas prison cells are African-Africans.Earl Ofari Hutchinson is the author of The Crisis in Black and Black. email: ehutchi344@aol.com