Why is it that America has imprisoned so many people and how has it come to be that the minorities of our general population make up the majority of our prison population?.
The high rate of incarceration in the United States is largely due to the policies that were put in place in connection with the war on drugs in the 1980s and 90s. Unfortunately, these policies have produced largely unequal outcomes for communities of color due to "misguided drug laws and draconian sentencing requirements" (The Drug War, Mass Incarceration and Race). According to Law Professor Bill Quigley, "African Americans, who are 13% of the population and 14% of drug users, are not only 37% of the people arrested for drugs but 56% of the people in state prisons for drug offenses" (Quigley 2010). This is an unacceptable statistic from a country that seems to boast equal opportunity. Smith and Levinson suggest that these disparities could be explained by an implicit racial bias that effects us all, that is, "despite even the best intentions, people automatically classify information in racially based ways" (Smith and Levinson 2012:797). This is an especially troubling proposal when you consider the number of decisions that the prosecutors in our criminal justice system must make about a suspect from the time of arrest until sentencing. These questions include: Should the person be charged with a crime? What should the bail be? Should a plea bargain be offered? What should the sentence be? It is conceivable, but by no means excusable, that prosecutors' implicit racial bias is the reason behind the discriminatory representation of African Americans in U.S. prisons.
Because poor black Americans tend to live in racially and economically segregated areas, the bias that is putting more people of color behind bars for drug crimes is in turn seriously harming minority communities. When an inmate is taken from their community, it places economic and emotional burdens on their family members.