Watching the videos and reading the readings taught me a lot about mass incarceration in the United States. Mass incarceration began shortly after reconstruction but took off after the late 70s and 80s (Davis, 1997). According to Michelle Alexander, "Poor people and people of color are locked in cages and treated worse than animals and the stripped of civil rights like the right to vote, public benefits, and education." The criminal justice system is completely corrupt. They put away the people that "deserve it" but they also put away those that fit the look of people that "deserve it" which leads to people of color being wrongly put away. Our criminal justice system is more or less a cast system (The Future of Race in America). Learning this made me realize that the justice system is not based of justice at all, its simply based off of race and those in power wanting to stay in power.
The fact that the criminal justice system is biased is truly what has stuck with me the most. There are more black adults incarcerated than were enslaved a decade before the world war began. At the peak of the drug war, 80-90 percent of drug offenders sent to prison were African American but it has been proven that white youth are more likely to use and deal drugs. This topic relates to current events because currently, there are more people in prison on drug convictions than there were people in prison in 1980. Even though it is clear that race is what drives police, it is hard to prove because you cannot claim for racial discrimination unless there is "evidence" of bias (The Future of Race in America, Alexander).
