Institutional Racism and Mass Incarceration: Joe's Story

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Written By: Tori Palmberg

            Growing up in a predominantly white community, I did not have the opportunity to develop many friendships with those of color. However, as a young woman in my 20’s, I did become very close to a young black boy in our community when I was working at a preschool in our town. He became an important part of my life, though his struggle has been very painful to watch. At 4 years old, Joe was full of energy and was already getting into trouble. He had been sent home repeatedly for hitting his playmates, yelling, and defying authority. As this young boy grew, his teachers branded him as too much trouble and the boy found himself repeatedly suspended from school and eventually expelled. By age 13, he found himself in trouble with the law and incarcerated in an out of town juvenile hall in French Camp, California. Out on probation, the juvenile continued to get into trouble. By age 18, he had committed a burglary and was charged with his first felony. Now, at age 20, he is still on probation trying to make better choices, but still having difficulty. Sadly, Joe has been incarcerated for more than three years of his adolescence and has been to adult jail twice.

            Throughout his life, Joe was repeatedly labeled, ostracized, called names, stereotyped and even physically attacked because of his race. He had no real family in the area and there were few families of color for him to identify with. Joe’s barriers to success in life, are due in part to the individual racism he has experienced throughout his life and the institutional racism that has preserved and perpetuated large scale racial discrimination. 2013 statistics from Kiddata.org, on juvenile felony arrest rates, shows that African American youth in California disproportionately have the highest arrest rate at 30.3 per 1,000 compared to the next highest group which is Hispanics at 7.7. Whites have the lowest arrest rate at 5.5 per 1,000. Sadly, Joe’s story is all too common as the issue of mass incarceration and the number of young black men incarcerated in the United States is without parallel.

U.S. Census Bureau
2008

            When comparing US incarceration rates in terms of race, the statistics are quite unsettling. According to data published by Sociology Professor, Tonya Golash-Boza in her book Race and Racisms: A Critical Approach, in 2009, the imprisonment rate of white males was 487 per 100,000 of the population, as compared to 1,193 per 100,000 Latino males and 3,110 per 100,000 black males. In fact, by the end of the twentieth century, black men were seven times more likely than white men to go to prison (Golash-Boza, 2015). This data suggests that race and a pervasive system of inequality are direct correlates of the disproportionate number of young black men and other men of color we see behind bars.

            Joe’s struggle with delinquency, crime, and repeated incarceration speaks to the larger issue of institutional racism plaguing our society. Institutional racism is the normalization and legitimization of the laws, policies, and dynamics that routinely favor and benefit whites over those of color. It is pervasive throughout our history, culture, politics, economics and social fabrics of everyday life. Laws and social policies in our nation are designed to favor whites over minorities. Examples include drug sentencing disparities and other contributing factors such as social and economic isolation, racial profiling (Stop and Frisk), and zero tolerance policies in our schools. Until the larger sociological patterns related to institutional racism (and other forms of racism) are addressed, little can and will be done to help young black men like Joe, and to address the injustice and inequalities that racism and mass incarceration perpetuate.