Mass Incarceration as The Modern Day Slavery in The United States

The 13th significantly highlights the key aspects comparing, slavery to mass incarceration. The Jim Crow laws came about, after slavery during the years of 1877 through the 1960s. People think that the Jim Crow Laws were just a set of anti-black laws, but it was more than that, it was the way of life, people had to abide by those rules. The Jim Crow Laws was strengthen by the belief that whites were superior to black in every way. Crazy laws such as blacks and whites couldn’t eat together, or blacks couldn’t show affection to one another, because it’s insulting to whites. (Pilgrim, 2000). The 13th Amendment banned slavery and involuntary servitude, but, when people go to prison, they aren’t rehabilitated, they are giving task to do through the day unvoluntarily, but because they are in prison they have no choice but to, the 13th amendment doesn’t apply to them, because they’re locked away.

Mass incarceration, started after our 37th president Richard Nixon, who was in office, from 1969-1974, they wanted to crack down on drugs, to have a drug free America by 1995. This is when The “War on Drugs” started. Laws against drug possession in the 1970s became stricter, people were getting mandatory minimum sentences, which cause the prison population to increase with non-violent drug offenders. (Pilgrim, 2000).

Under Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton’s Administration is when Mass incarceration started. The problem with mass incarceration is that, 2.3 million Americans are jailed, one in four prisoners in the entire world are in the US. (Morgan, 2016) Mass Incarceration impacted African American communities because of those 2.3 million Americans in jail, 40% of those are African American men. (Ava DuVernay’s Film “13th”). African Americans were seen as more of a threat and a target. African Americans were treated as a lower class then Caucasians, but mass incarceration, also had to do with class.

Most African Americans in the 60s and 70s lived in poverty, most of them turned to selling drugs as a way out, not to get in trouble but to bring some type of income into the household. In the African American community crack was an epidemic. Cocaine was as well, but since crack was cheaper to make and get, that’s what was being sold and smoked. Cocaine was more associated with Caucasians and crack more associated African Americans. Crack held a heavier sentence then cocaine; someone who goes to jail for crack automatically receives a mandatory minimum of 5, 10 or 20 years depending on where, but someone who has cocaine, has to have 100 times more than that to even receive a prison term for that long. It took people away from their kids, back then laws were made to protect us African American’s. (FAMM, 2016).

In this day in age, I don’t believe that the criminal justice can be reformed. With the president in elect that we have now, and the racism that he’s brought to light, it showed how people in America truly feel. To change the system, you have to fix what’s broken first and that’s the mindset of the individuals who want to “Make America Great Again” by going back in time, things won’t ever change, unless people want it to.