This week’s assignments really
opened my eyes up to the institutional inequity that goes on in the world-
especially in the United States. While the U.S. might be advanced in some
areas- it is far behind when it comes to the prison system. The United States
locks up more people than any other country in the world- while it only makes
up about 5 percent of the world’s population, it is responsible for 24 to 25
percent of the world’s prisoners. About half of these prisoners are
non-violent. In the video, Frontline:
Prison State, it shows us into the Kentucky prison system and the one year
journey through the system of 4 residents from Beecher Terrace, a housing
project in the west end of Louisville, Kentucky.
What really stood out to me in the
video was the obvious prevalence of the population being targeted by the
police- African American. Starting at a young age, African Americans are put at
a higher risk for run-ins with the law. For example, 2 of the high schools I went
to in Austin were Bowie High School, which is a primarily white school in South
Austin and Austin Can Academy, which is a primarily black and Hispanic school
in East Austin. During my time there, which was only a few months, I did not
see one white kid there. By contrast, most of the staff and security officers
there were white. Bowie had about 2 unarmed security guards and rarely had
random drug searches done. At Austin Can Academy, there were probably about 10-
if not more- armed security guards who, along with the staff, treated the kids
like cattle and would literally pull them out of the crowd by the back of their
shirts if their shirt was untucked or they were wearing a hat or they seemed
the least bit suspicious. They treated the kids with no respect and were
constantly kicking kids out and busting kids for breaking the rules of their probation.
They also had random drug searches at least once a week- if not more. Well, of
course if you put that much police presence in a school you are going to end up
with more arrests and instances of drug possession. If you did the same number
of random drug searches at a school like Bowie or Westlake, you would probably
end up with quite a bit of offenders- the only differences is that instead of
going to jail, their parents would send them to a rehab center and be able to
keep their record clean.
A particularly sad moment from the
video was when one of the girls who had been locked up, Demetria Duncan, was talking
to the camera and repeating how she just doesn’t care anymore. I watched a
video in one of my other classes that talked about how when kids say “they don’t
care” it really means that they don’t feel cared about. And it makes perfect
sense why she would feel this way- the system has let her down. She would be
able to be out jail but her own aunt won’t take her back in and she doesn’t
have anyone else to stay with. It seems like there should be a better solution
for kids in her position. As a social worker, I would try to find a therapeutic
environment for them that doesn’t make them feel like prisoners and work on
giving them the life skills and resources to be a successful member of society.
Joanna, I really enjoyed your blog post this week and I appreciate that you discussed your first hand experience with systematic discrimination. I agree that the prison system in the United States is so broken, and it is shocking that we imprison more people than any other country. Not only is this fact alone alarming, but also it is important to note that a disproportionate amount of imprisoned individuals are from minority groups. One of the women interviewed in the documentary, “Prison State,” summed up the issue well when she said that the prison system basically operates from cradle to grave. Children are often born into a family where at least one of the family members is in prison, and from a very young age, even the smallest of infractions is treated as criminal. Therefore, children born into the Beecher Terrace neighborhood have almost no chance of escaping the cycle of imprisonment. This neighborhood is not a lone example. As you stated, you saw this same situation occurring at the Austin Can Academy. This is not only an issue because people must endure discrimination because of their race; it is also costing the state millions upon millions of dollars to put individuals in prison who have committed only minor crimes. Unfortunately, it is so hard to change the broken system because it would require changing the norms of how our country deals with crime, but my hope is that we will see positive change in the future as more people become aware of the brokenness and discrimination present in the prison system.
ReplyDeleteFrontline. (2014, April). Prison State [Video file]. Retrieved from http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/film/prison-state/
I knew America imprisoned a lot of people, but I had no idea it was that many. The privatization of prisons, being for-profit, has had a lot to do with the increased prison population. I feel like that is a large reason why the war on drugs will never end. It brings in too much revenue. Well, that and it criminalizes minorities and keeps them oppressed. What you mentioned about the school in East Austin is a prime example of how minorities are criminalized from an early age. Great blog post!
ReplyDeleteJoanna, I really enjoyed reading your post for this week! I especially liked how you included your personal experience from the two high schools you attended. Like you said, of course there will be more people getting in trouble at Austin Can Academy if there is double the police presence and double the drug searches. Hearing these stories and watching these videos make the cycle of oppression so clear. The conditions some groups are born into will make it much harder for them to succeed, and then privileged groups will look at these conditions as failure on their part-resulting in feelings of discrimination, causing the whole cycle to repeat itself. I also felt so sad for Demetria. It was clear she lived a very hard life with the death of her moth, and it was very obvious that her aunt and her did not have the best relationship. With these conditions, why would she feel cared about? There is nobody there for her to keep her on track, and they community she grew up in basically tells these kids that prison is inevitable. I truly hope that Demetria and Cristal are both able to get out of Beecher Terrace, and see that prison is not the only way of life, despite what they have seen their whole lives.
DeleteHi Joanna,
ReplyDeleteYou and I have had a similar experience with high schools. I, too, went to two separate high schools with completely different economic and racial backgrounds. My first high school sat near a lake in a small, country town in Texas. The town had a lot of land, which flocked people with a lot of money. All of my peers were white. In the entire school, only 4% of people were not white. As far as I know, the majority of the people in the town were wealthy. When I moved to San Marcos, I saw a distinct change in my socioeconomic environment. I was now a minority in a primarily Hispanic town. This town, much larger than my first, hosted much poverty. Many of my new friends lived in small apartments with their entire families. Many of the households made less than $30,000 a year combined. Many of my peers were undocumented or had parents who were not U.S. Citizens. All of my friends are either first generation college students, or were not given the opportunity to study at all because of funding and financial aid issues. It was common that people drop out of high school to work 50-60 hours a week to sustain their families. On the topic of security, my first high school did not have police on campus at all. In San Marcos, however, we had 4 to 5 on campus at all times who were armed. It was so obvious the discrimination from a white student just walking off of campus versus anyone else who tried to leave. Little did all of the staff, which mostly did not even live within the same communities as the students they were instructing, was that these people were just trying to survive. My peers could not worry about an education when they were worried about feeding their family because their mom or dad had been deported. I really enjoyed reading and comparing our experiences! Great work!