Human Behavior and Social Environment

¶ … eve of MLK Day, Michelle Alexander and Randall Robinson on the Mass Incarceration of Black Americans (13th January, 2012). The show is a discussion between Tran Africa founder Randall Robinson and author Michelle Alexander about the disproportionate number of African-Americans that are represented in American correctional facilities that include prisons, jails, or that are on probation, or on parole.

According to both founder and author, there are more African-Americans currently incarcerated in the American system than were enslaved in 1850 and more Americans disenfranchised now than they were with the Jim Crow laws in 1870. Both presenters call for a greater emphasis on providing African-Americans with dignity, education, and jobs rather than casting them into jail.

Rationale The topic, presented on Martin Luther King Day, is of concern to Americans interested in social justice, since the jail system does show disproportionate statistics of incarcerated minorities to White and most of these individuals are Black. Americans celebrate MLK day as articulation that they have recognized the problems of the past and have endeavored to treat them. Indicative in the premise is the inference that these problems no longer exist, or that Americans have made huge strides to ameliorate these issues.

This perspective needs to be corrected; therefore attention was drawn to this show as one means of doing so. Issue and Social System The social system addressed in this presentation is detritus of American prejudice towards African-Americans as practiced in the criminal Justice system. Both authors have the following qualifications that enable them to deal with the topic.

Alexander is a civil rights advocate and lawyer and the author of a book that describes the phenomena of the disproportionate number of African-Americans who are jailed in the American system ("The new Jim Crow: Mass incarceration in the age of color-blindedness"). Robinson is the founder of a nationalist movement, TransAfrica, a law professor at Pennsylvania State University, and the author of several books that detail American discrimination towards African-Americans and African-American attachment to their homeland.

Critique At fade-value, both presenters seem to have a lot of points going in their favor. Statistics released by the Human Rights Watch, for instance, indicate that "African-Americans adults have been arrested at a rate of 2.8 to 5.5 times higher than white adults in every year from 1980 to 2007" despite the fact that both Whites and African-Americans engage in similar rates of drug use and dealing.

In New York alone, approximately 600,000 people are arbitrarily frisked per year, 90% of them being black, whilst record of the death sentence shows that 75% of those executed are Black and Hispanic. Ramifications of incarceration are enormous extending to board, employment, and even provision of food stamps. In some cases, ex-offenders are still to grant food stamps, and it is enormously hard for a previous offender to be re-accepted into society. He is branded as pariah and given little chance to find employment.

In most states, voting also is debarred him (with two states it being allowed in jail). The American restraints on the offender are more severe that those in many other countries, with the result that the offender ends up being discriminated for life and may find himself compelled to repeat his offending behavior fro the pure objective of survival. More so, it is not only prison that is the stigma but simply 'arrest' too. In this case, numerous ex-offenders can be branded for life.

And such, it seems is the case. Given these facts and figures, Robinson and Alexander, apparently, seem to have a compelling case.

On the other hand, it may be that other circumstances lead to the disproportionate amount of African-Americans -- and other minorities -- in the American jail system and these may include unfortunate facts that their disproportionate circumstances of poverty (with its ugly ramifications that include poorer education, negative influence, alcoholism and teen-age pregnancy for instance), less opportunity, and the fact that they have to struggle in order to survive compel a disproportionate amount of them to adopt crime, therefore end up in jail.

One of the criminological theories is disorganized communities that are a potential.