Why are black men being incarcerated in larger numbers today compared to other groups?

After reading the article Just Mercy for class, I decided to do some research of my own. I found an article on www.americanprogress.org that exhibited some startling facts about incarceration rates among people of color, particularly black men. People of color make up roughly 30% of the United States’ population, yet they account for an outstanding 60% of those imprisoned. Additionally, one in three black men can expect to go to prison in their lifetime.

I think an enormously influential factor that contributes to these statistics can be attributed to the dramatic growth of incarceration for drug offenses. I spoke with a friend who unfortunately had one experience with getting in trouble with the law, and I thought his opinion was very interesting. He told me that “police find drugs where they look for them,” and I started to think about this more on my own. It’s true to say that drugs are everywhere and used by a variety of different people, including middle to upper class white young adults. However, I suppose that it is probably easier to find drugs and bust potential drug-offenders in inner-city, open-air drug markets, as opposed to within the confines of a suburban basement where drug operations exist. Additionally, inner-city areas typically tend to be over-policed anyways, enhancing the over-incarceration issue because more people are likely to be arrested.

It goes without saying that this concept I previously talked about is not the sole cause of over-incarceration among black men, and to say so would be naive. Another prevalent underlying reason can be attributed to racism, particularly racial profiling. According to the Sentencing Project, for black males in their thirties, 1 in every 10 is in prison or jail on any given day. Personally, as a white female, if I’m doing something that would be considered sketchy, such as walking around by myself at night, it is unlikely that a police officer would drive by and automatically assume that I was involved in a criminal activity. It is very possible that a white man or woman would be given the benefit of the doubt, and this extremely unfair notion can be attributed to the concept of white privilege. Objectively, I do not think that a person of color would receive the same kind of treatment, and that is a major issue that proves that we still have a long, long way to go in terms of defeating racial injustice.