America’s Undeclared Apartheid

Disproportionate Incarceration for Blacks and Hispanics

Must Be Questioned and Challenged

By Ricardo Saúl LaRosa

America’s undeclared Apartheid threatens to wipe out a whole generation

of young Black/Hispanic men who are increasingly incarcerated in the
penal system and whose numbers are increasing at the rate of about seven
percent a year.

The farce called “War on Drugs” has really been

a war on people of color and the poor.
There is something deadly wrong about America’s criminal justice system
which chooses long, punitive prison sentences over comprehensive
strategies toward addressing drug addiction, drug related crime and
poverty.

There exist undeniable disparities against Blacks/Hispanics in America

when it comes to prison sentencing, which are not being addressed by
civic leaders in our communities of color. Why the silence?

I believe that the so-called Black/Hispanic leaders don’t have the courage
of their convictions to speak out. They are phony leaders and they have
simply sold out. They see these injustices and remain silence. And silence
is complicity.

In reality the so-called national ‚war on drugs‛ is a farce, a lie and a

pretext for racial profiling during the sentencing of Blacks/Hispanics. My
critics say that this is a creation of my wild imagination because they don’t
want to acknowledge the obvious. But just consider the following facts not
myths:
Human Rights Watch reported that black male or enslave poor people or
members of minority communities. But that is exactly what is happening
as a result of the ‘get-tough-on-crime’ drug war policies of the past few
decades.‛

We are now adding 1,200 new inmates to US jails and prisons each week,
and adding about 260 new prison beds each day.

Ken Roth, executive director of the New York-based Human Rights Watch,
called the racial disparities a ‚national scandal . . . Black and white drug
offenders get radically different treatment in the American justice system.‛
I call on the leaders of the community to seriously address and debate the
disproportionate arrest and sentencing of low-income minorities on
drug-related charges in America.

We must seriously focus on the impact of punitive drug policies on the

communities of color. We must protest and demand an end to America’s
‚apartheid-like‛ criminal justice system. The results from the failed
policies of America’s ‚drug war‛ have been a travesty and devastating to
the people of color.

Politicians and civic leaders must acknowledge America’s failed drug

policies on the nation’s most vulnerable communities of color alike in
order proceed with finding viable solutions to end America’s undeclared
Apartheid.

The problem is blatant racial profiling and the buy-and-bust undercover

operations, which ensure higher arrest/prison rates within communities of
color. This racist cycle is then repeated over and over.

Once released from jail the ex-prisoners are confronted with limited
employment and housing resources, about two-thirds of people released
from jail nationwide are re-arrested within three years.

Former prisoners suffer from a complete feeling of alienation. With no

comprehensive program to assist their re-entry into society, they are
literately on their own. Further, ex-felons convicted of drug offenses are
not eligible for federal assistance for both higher education and public
housing.
Many prisoner advocates and progressive leaders have called for the
development of a drug policy based on treatment and alternatives to
prison for defendants, regardless of race or economic class. I agree with
them and it is the first step in rectifying a horrible injustice, America’s
undeclared Apartheid.

Most illicit drug users in America are white men, however, the disparity in
the jail time given to Blacks/Hispanics out number the racial difference in
drug use.

Federal courts impose much harsher sentences on crack users and dealers,
a fact that indirectly leads to Blacks’ overrepresentation in prison.

The nation’s prisons costs more than 30 billion annually to operate.

Between 1983 and 1998 the number of prisoners in the US increased from
650,000 to more than 1.7 million. About 60 percent of that number are
Blacks and Latinos. More than one-third of all young black men in their
20s are currently in jail, on probation or parole, or awaiting trial.

With two million Americans doing time behind bars, America now
imprisons about 500,000 people on drug-related charges.

Blacks are, by and far, the most over represented ethnic group in the
prison.
Black drug users nationwide are sent to prison at 13 times the rate of white
male drug users.

At just 12.3% of the national population, Blacks made up 58% of the state
prison population in 2000 doing time for drug-related offenses. Whites, by
comparison, constitute 75% of the national population, but make up 23%
of men and women doing time for drug-related crimes in state prisons.
Black ex-felonies are politically disenfranchised unparalleled since the Jim
Crow era. There is now about 3.2 million Black men who are not able to
vote because of a felony conviction.

I will call it for what this disparity is and that is

racism, modern enslavement visa-vie jails and a
high tech lynching of people of color, the working
poor (the majority who are White) and political
dissenters.
‚The drug war is a proxy for racism,‛ says Andy Ko, Project Director of
ACLU-Washington’s Drug Policy Reform Project. ‚Most modern
politicians wouldn’t dream of explicitly advocating that society persecute

Racism Permeates Drug Law Enforcement

Unequal treatment of minority group members pervades every stage of the
criminal justice system. Racial profiling, street sweeps, buy and bust
operations and other police activities have targeted people in street level
retail drug transactions in low-income communities of color. Blacks and
Latinos are victimized by unfair treatment by police; by racially skewed
charging and plea bargaining decisions by prosecutors; by discriminatory
sentencing practices and by the failure of judges, elected officials and other
criminal justice policy makers to redress the inequities that have come to
permeate the system.

The rate of drug admissions to state prison for black men are thirteen times
greater than the rate for white men. A recent report by Human Rights
Watch found that while drug use is consistent across all racial groups,
Blacks and Latinos are far more likely to be arrested and prosecuted and
given long sentences for drug offenses. Blacks constitute 13 percent of all
drug users, but 35 percent of those arrested for drug possession, 55 percent
of persons convicted, and 74 percent of people sent to prison.(1)
Nationally, Latinos comprise almost half of those arrested for marijuana
offenses(2) and Native Americans comprise almost 2/3 of those prosecuted
for criminal offenses in federal courts.(3)

The racial bias of the drug war is exemplified by the 100 to 1 disparity in
prison sentences for crack versus powder cocaine. As scientists and courts
alike have declared, there is no rational basis for distinguishing between
crack cocaine and powder cocaine. Nonetheless, in 1994, 90 percent of
persons convicted of federal crack cocaine offenses were black, six percent
Latino, and less than four percent white. Federal powder cocaine offenders
were 30 percent black, 43 percent Latino, and 26 percent white.(4)

Notes:
1. Human Rights Watch Report: Punishment and Prejudice: Racial
Disparities in the Criminal Justice System, May 2000 Vol. 12, No. 2 (G).

2. John D. Couriel, Keep It Real: Recasting the drug debate in terms of

accountability and opportunity.

3. U.S. Department of Justice, Bureau of Justice Statistics, ‚American

Indians are Violent Crime Victims at Double the Rate of the General
Population,‛ news release, Feb. 14, 1999

4. 1.4 million black men or 13% of the black male adult population are
disenfranchised, reflecting a rate of disenfranchisement that is seven times
the national average.

© 2002