Due Nov 10
Immigration, Xenophobia, Policing, BLM
Led by Andy and Brooke
Skim through the following articles and extract something interesting from each one:
- Ashley Nellis, Ph.D. “The Color of Justice: Racial and Ethnic Disparity in State Prisons.” The Sentencing Project, 1 Nov. 2022: link.
- Graham, David A. “How Criminal-Justice Reform Fell Apart.” The Atlantic, Atlantic Media Company, 26 May 2022: link.
- Kamasaki, C. (2022, March 9). US immigration policy: A classic, unappreciated example of structural racism. Brookings: link
- Radney, I. (2022b, June 9). “Xenophobia Powers the United States.” Public Books: link
Respond to one of the following questions in a comment, below.
- What are your opinions on the recommendations highlighted by the Sentencing Project? Do you have other ideas for decreasing the disparity in prisons?
- What is something significant that stood out to you from David Graham’s piece in The Atlantic?
- When reading through the last two articles on xenophobia, what commonalities do you see with businesses practices we’ve criticized in prior classes?
Regarding the Sentencing Project
I think the recommendations proposed by the Sentencing Project have the possibility to make a significant impact. Eliminating mandatory minimum sentencing is vital in criminal justice reform, as it could change sentencing policies targeting Black and Latinx individuals. The decriminalization of low-level drug offenses goes along with this and would be a major push forward in reform. While these reforms are critical on their own, is there a way that these policies could be applied to individuals who are already incarcerated? I am not sure if this would be feasible, but I think it is important to not only make changes moving forward but mend unjust sentencing from the past. Before reading the article, I had not heard of racial impact statements. This is another important measure that would ensure more just criminal justice laws moving forward, while also encouraging the repeal of previously instated discriminatory laws.
The Sentencing Project provides an effective and clear outline of how to combat disparity in prisons. Namely, there are three main recommendations highlighted, but the first one stands out the most for its distinct, immediate call to action. By aiming to “eliminate mandatory sentences for all crimes,” the Sentencing Project is targeting the need for equality, given the “disproportionately [imposition of] unduly harsh sentences on Black and Latinx individuals.” While putting forth this idea is powerful and meaningful, a more attainable solution may be warranted. As a result, all the information described throughout the report provides the ability to fuse together a realistic idea to decrease the disparity in prisons. Although my ideas are limited for combating this specific issue, I believe gathering the necessary details and topics that need to be addressed take precedence and are crucial to building a cohesive solution.
In the Sentencing Project, I particularly took note of the extra emphasis on how much of an impact going to prison is. For example, it states, “Going to prison is a major life-altering event that creates obstacles to building stable lives in the community, such as gaining employment and finding stable and safe housing after release.” I think that there is an initial perception of most people that Black and Latinx individuals are imprisoned for a reason but given the impact that imprisonment has on an individual’s life, people dont notice that these individuals were originally imprisoned on purpose as to limit them and keep them restricted within this cycle of “crime”. Therefore the recommendations seem to target this said impact.
Regarding the Graham’s piece in The Atlantic
Something that stood out to me in David Graham’s piece in the Atlantic was his mention of the possible dangers that could result from a return to potential brutal policing tactics. Since the people want lower crime, there is a possibility that the police might “crack down” at the price of justice and liberty. I think this is scary mostly because it might produce the desired result in the short term. When people see this result, they might begin to justify and rationalize police brutality. Since most police brutality is already directed toward black individuals, it is likely that this would continue to be the case due to the nature of the broken system. This also makes me wonder if this would create almost a self-perpetuating cycle of sorts, as social media has made it so easy to expose police brutality and organize protests. Would the worsening of police brutality spark more protests that would then spark calls for stricter policing by the right-wing extremists that oppose BLM? Would this cycle continue, or would there be a breaking point?
Something that really stuck out to me in David Graham’s Atlantic piece was the notion that in the midst of increasing crime rates – which he argues throughout the article are the reason why major strides in police reform via the Black Lives Matter movement have halted – many are worried that to methods of police brutality will be used to decrease this crime rate. This really shocked me, since the whole point of the BLM and defund the police causes are to stop the unnecessarily aggressive nature of the police and their clear discrimination towards people of color, so sociologist Patrick Sharkey’s argument that “now-abandoned methods can be effective at reducing crime, but unsustainably and at a great cost in justice” is ridiculously counterintuitive. Potential scenarios such as his go to show just how much is wrong with our current legal system and how much this institution needs to be rethought. Our solution to the problem of the crime rate cannot be at the expense of more innocent lives.
During the summer of 2020, at the height of the BLM movement, a common phrase prevalent throughout social media was “defund the police”. But within the article “How Criminal-Justice Reform Fell Apart”, Graham shows how Biden highlighted the need to find the police rather than defund it. This point is once again brought up, in practice, when Graham mentions how cities that in fact did defund the police, saw an increase in murder rates, and had to refund the police. This highlights the discrepancy between the idea of reformation widely spread to the public and what is actually needed for positive change. This significantly stood out to me because I did not know about this discrepancy until now. It makes me wonder what other knowledge I have gained from social media has actually contradicted the policies and action that really needs to be taken.
What I found particularly striking about David Graham’s piece in The Atlantic is how the major demonstrations of the BLM movement in the Summer of 2020 bizarrely became a blip in the timeline of reform rather than a monumental instance for igniting sustained change. What was expected to be a critical turning point at the time turned into a statistic, and instead shifted the tide for the perception of crime rather than police brutality itself. With crime rates rising during this time, the progression that many were so open to and ready to welcome now became something they feared, with Graham writing of how “Americans were ready to take a chance on reforms as long as they felt safe, but rising crime rates rattled confidence”.
Something that really stood out to me in David Graham’s piece was his analysis of the political intricacies of this shift in radicalism, how he looked at Biden as a neutralizer to Trump’s “back the blue” rhetoric and how Biden has pivoted from defunding the police to funding them more to allow for additional resources such as mental health supports, reflecting a shift in the public away from the reform that was so strongly called for in the summer of 2020. I thought it was really interesting that people originally voted into office because of their more progressive stance on police reform are now being voted out of office for the same reasons.
Regarding Xenophobia and Business