Race and Incarceration - The Land of the Not-so-Free?

The numerous public lectures are among the most inspiring and thoughtful sorts of event during the weekly schedule in Athens. Unlike the issues addressed in the current pre-game prior to the presidential elections later in this year, societal issues actually pressing find a platform for discussion. Among the series of public lectures, one event in special exemplified the nature of this valuable societal discourse.

Dr. Khalil Muhammad lectured on Race and Criminalization in the American context. Obviously, the issue of race and ethnicity is foundational to an ethnically diversified society. The justice - and criminal prosecution system is another basic societal pillar. In American history, both taken together developed a – carefully spoken – very controversial relationship.  Outwardly racially biased, especially towards African-Americans, this relationship contributed towards keeping America the country with the highest incarceration rate in the world up to the present day. The incarceration rate is one boiler plate expressing the societal outcomes of the linkage between race and crime.

Dr. Muhammad discussing with Ohio University Students

 A short overview on the facts will help further framing the issue. The Land of the Free holds 2.2 million individuals incarcerated (The Sentencing Project, 2015). Not only is this 25 percent of the global prison population. The amount also equals the total population of America’s third or fourth largest city – Chicago and Houston. Among these 2.2 million, African Americans are imprisoned six times the rate of whites. This leaves one out of nine children of African-American descend with a parent in prison. Again, as a matter of fact in order to depict the statistical scale, mass incarceration costs the American taxpayer a lot of money – some $ 80 billion dollar annually. However, costs for society go far beyond the actual incarceration costs. In many cases, the imprisonment of one of their breadwinners causes an income collapse of too many American families. Without the foundational basis of a stable income, these families are dependent on social security programs (Semuels, 2015). 

Incarceration costs only superficially display their actual toll on society. The aspect of incarceration is only one manifesto of what Dr. Muhammad calls the idea of black criminality and what shapes American societal realities up into present. The follow-up video provides more insight into his research: