We incarcerate more people than does any other Country in the World. Blacks and others of color are disproportionately represented in our jails and prisons. They are also disproportionately represented on the Probation and Community Control rolls. Being sentenced to Probation or Community Control is the first step on the path towards Prison. Thereafter, the ex-offender cannot vote or find a job, never mind a good job. They have no economic or political power. They can never achieve the American Dream, because it truly is only a dream for those who find themselves in and out of the Criminal Justice system regularly.
The Police stop blacks night and day at will for "Field Interviews", which is a euphemism for illegal detention - no probable cause. It is much more rare for a white person to be stopped for no reason. Black men are subjected to illegal searches under one guise or another more often than are whites. When stopped, they are not free to leave, no matter how many times the Police testify to the contrary. Once officially detained, the black man stays in jail for the duration, because neither he nor his family can afford to post the bond, no matter how low it is set.
The attitude in our Criminal Courts is that since a black man was arrested, he must be guilty, they all are. It is assumed that black men want to be drug dealers and thieves. Black men are given longer jail sentences than are white men. Through a lack of social services, racial discrimination, Policing practices and Court attitudes, we are driving young black men away from mainstream paths to progress and success. If the Defendant is sentenced to Supervision, the system requires the Defendants to pay various fines, costs and Supervision fees, and to participate in, and pay for various court ordered classes. It is usually the case that they simply cannot afford to pay for their Supervision, given their hand to mouth existence. Also, the transportation necessary for attendance at the required functions Ordered by the Court is assumed to be availabe. I have trouble getting to my appointments, and I own a car. What job can a man faced with these institutional biases qualify for other than drug dealing or petty crimes.
The term "Supervision" really means that you can be harassed at will, searched without a warrant and must comply with random drug testing, at the Supervisee's expense. It is to the advantage of the Probation and Community Control Supervisors to file a Warrants for Probation Violation that would reduce their case loads. Formality and Rules of Procedure don't exist in Probation Violation Hearings. Jail or Prison is the most likely outcome. The petty crimes add up, and then it's Strike Three, prison for life.
The obstacles that black men face every day of their lives are not acknowledged by any one who works in the System, and the Offender is never given the benefit of a doubt. So black men plead No Contest to charges that could have been beaten at trial by a good lawyer. The Defendants don't trust their Public Defenders since the APDs and ASAs all work for the same government. If the man goes to trial and loses, he is given a much stiffer sentence than he would had he pled out. A huge number of black men are either on Probation or Community Control, or are being housed in our many prisons and jails. In this way they are eliminated, for all practical purposes, from our society. A wide range of domestic dysfunction and hopelessness results from the existence of this double standard. The cycle of arrests, prosecutions and imprisonment goes on with no intervention, until the young man becomes imprisoned for most of his life. His children never have a Father at home, and the children live in poverty, leading them down the same paths trod by their Fathers. Injustice grows into anger and hate, causing young black men to become criminals and to follow in the tragic footsteps of their forebears.
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