The United States criminal justice system is a pillar of American government and society, and it is always visible: we see police when we go out in public, we drive past jails and prisons on the highway, and we watch TV shows and movies about drugs, violence, and the consequences characters face for their actions.
However, the criminal justice system in the United States has some very unjust aspects, and in this entry of systemic injustices, I will focus on mass incarceration in the United States.
In the criminal justice system, there is systemic racism at every level; from policing on the street to prosecutorial decisions, trials, and sentencing, there are racial disparities. Mass incarceration affects people of color more than others, and is especially harmful for people who are marginalized in other ways, such as gender and class.
The racial disparities in the criminal justice system begin all the way at the start, in police interactions. Black people are stopped on the street by police much more often than white people, while white people are more likely to call the police. White people make up 60% of the adult population, they only account for 60% of police stops, whereas black people make up 12% of the adult population and make up 18% of police stops (prisonpolicy.org). 
Furthermore, the disparity in rates of actual incarceration are mind-boggling. In state and federal prisons, 2,272 per 100,000 black men are incarcerated, as opposed to just 392 per 100,000 white men. For women, there are 88 black women per 100,000 behind bars and 49 per 100,000 white women (prisonpolicy.org).
All of this information makes it very clear that there are some serious problems within the criminal justice system, with mass incarceration being one of the most devastating systemic injustices in this country today. To properly uproot the racial injustice of mass incarceration, there needs to be some very serious changes made to the system, top to bottom.
Mass incarceration is a systemic injustice because it is a group of people being treated unfairly by the government that is supposed to protect them. Police, judges, courts, jails, etc., are all systems in this country, and when systems discriminate, systems are unjust. When thinking about mass incarceration in the context of this class, I can’t help but think about the early theorists we studied who focused on otherness, particularly Hegel and his master-slave dialect. Although mass incarceration is just modern, legal slavery, it is not as much about the system of slavery itself as it is about the power dynamics that exist in so many levels of our criminal justice system, and the fact that the criminal justice system is designed to keep certain groups down.
Source: https://www.prisonpolicy.org/blog/2020/07/27/disparities/
Mass incarceration is definitely a huge problem in America. I think it’s absolutely insane that every 2,000 out of every 1000,000 African Americans are incracerated as opposed to just around 370 per every 100,000 whites, especially when whites make up the majority of the U.S. population. I think one of the primary reasons for this statistic has to do with overpolicing in minority communities, racial profiling and mandatory minimums. I think we need a complete overhaul of the system in which we abolish mandatory minimums and for-profit private prisons, decriminalize all drugs, legalize marijuana, require extensive training, and fund marginalized communities.
Mass incarceration is for sure a huge problem. The documentary “13th” on Netflix is a great resource and easy to share with others for a quick watch. As mentioned there are so many reasons the problem has occurred, a system overhaul seems like one of the only realistic ways to fix it.