Injustice in Wealth Gap, Mass Incarceration and/or Racialized Policing
The explosion of incarceration and criminalization in the post-civil rights period is basically a project in macro injustice and racism. Also, it is a program deeply linked to change political economics in high levels of capitalism. Multinational globalization looks for cheaper labor more profit. Maximization plays a huge role in prison industrial complex (Brewer & Heitzeg 4). The newest historical uninterrupted series of political and legal mechanization are meant to enforce white supremacy with social and economic benefits with the law. This domination represents the last instance fostered through public strategies and control. On the other hand, the wealth gap, which symbolizes inequality, curtails more economic growth in democracies like the US. Indisputably, wealth gap, racialized policies, and mass incarceration complicate ideas of justice.
In the age of color-blind racism, there has been a corresponding change from de jure racism, encrypted into the legal system, to a de facto abuse. In this case, African Americans and other colored people are subjected to excessive surveillance, unequal protection in the eyes of the law, new-slave labor through incarceration, and extreme segregation in the name of controlling crime (Davis 6). This is how the modern-day legitimate legacy of the racialized conversion of plantations into prisons is depicted. At the current civil justice, the focus is put on claims regarding color-blindness, illustrating the idea that if race in not the basis of rightful discrimination, itis not relevant before the law at all (Brewer & Heitzeg 4). Thus, the notion of validity has been adulterated even as criminal justice system have replaced segregation and slavery, as modern racial project evidenced by disproportionate representation of African Americans as both perpetuators and victims of crime (Michelle 13). This occurrence is the unintended outcome of widely cast procedures and policies, instead of the result of the racially focused practice.
Injustice manifests in high rates of incarcerations mostly fueled by class dynamics, since poverty is a big factor among the confined individuals. Although it was always believed that the poor people go the prison, statistics prove that colored individuals end up bearing the impact of punitive policies enforced through imprisonment. Studies have revealed big patterns of racial disparity embedded in sentencing as a result of departures from important guidelines governing judgment. Consequently, African American men with low education levels have high chances of being incarcerated and getting longer verdict or the likelihood of having a no-prison option like the white counterparts if it is available (Michelle 28). Explanations to big racial disparities, as far as sentencing in concerned, have been given to be as a result of increased rates of arrest and participation in violent crimes by African American men, rather than existence of discriminatory judgments or policies.
The criminal justice system is made up of processes, procedures, and a collection of institutions that allow mass incarceration. The unfair relationship of colored men with this system is a production of communally reinforcing processes of class and race stratification that build African American males as racialized individuals having a marginalized public status and devalued positions in the society (Taibbi 10). Thus, mass confinement happens to be the outcome of ethnic ideologies meeting existing structural disadvantages, thereby fixing the colored people in a sting of social and economic drawbacks not felt by any other group, regardless of their criminal involvement. Racial ideology is constructed by power and status differentials and works as both a byproduct and facilitator of convergence of class stratification.
Inequality, as evidenced by wealth gap, is detrimental to justice system. For instance, in case of property rights, the rich can subvert regulatory, political, and legal institution for their personal benefit. If one individual is sufficiently more prosperous than the other, the legal system is susceptible to corruption, and the statutes that should uphold justice end up favoring the affluent persons (Glaesera, Scheinkmanb & Shleifer 22). In the same way, if both political and regulatory institutions can be influenced or be moved by wealth, they will arrive at honoring the establishment and ignore the insufficient. In turn, it makes the well-situated individuals to pursue harmful course, knowing that the legal system will hardly hold them accountable. Inequality fosters subversion of institutions in two ways. First the rich can redistribute from the poor via violence or a political process (Taibbi 19). By subversion of relevant systems they can work in their benefit through bribes, political contributions, and deployments of governmental and legal resources (Taibbi 20). It cuts the rights of people who are less positioned such small entrepreneurs who have to hold back on their investment. They spend a good deal of money on attorney to slow down a legal process. In any court model, the political and economic resources of the litigants count for the any outcome. Such resources act as key determinants as to whether a regulation serves the welfare of the public or finances the regulated.
In conclusion, this article discusses how mass incarceration, wealth gap, and racialized policies complicate the idea of justice. It provesthat mass incarceration is a neo-slavery fueled by lapses in the jurisdiction system that mainly targets the people of color who are considered to be socially and economically unprivileged in the society. On the same note, inequality in wealth distribution subverts political, regulatory, and legal institution, thereby hindering the have-nots from experiencing justice.
Works Cited
Brewer, Rose and Heitzeg, Nancy. The Racialization of Crime and Punishment Criminal Justice, Color-Blind Racism, and the Political Economy of the Prison Industrial Complex. American Behavioral Scientist, 2008.
Davis, Angela. Are Prison’s Obsolete. Barnes & Noble, 2003.
Glaesera, Edward. Scheinkmanb, Jose and Shleifer, Andrei. The Injustice of Inequality. Journal of Monetary Economics, 2003.
Michelle, Alexander. Mass Incarceration in the Age of Color Blindness. The New Presss, 2010.
Taibbi, Matt. The Divide: American Injustice in the Age of the Wealth Gap. Spiegel & Grau, 2014.