In late October, in a speech in Fall River, Robert A. Mulligan, chief These statistics accumulate a punishing weight falling more on African-American from the <\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" James Caroll, in a Boston Globe op-ed piece, mentions some alarming statistics concerning the US criminal justice system. He makes the argument that racism has been so effectively and insideously institutionalized under the guise of the "War on Drugs" that we … Continue reading ![](\"http:\/\/cyber.law.harvard.edu\/blogs\/static\/dowbrigade\/just-ice.jpg\")
James
\n Caroll, in a
\n Boston Globe op-ed piece<\/a>, mentions some alarming statistics concerning
\n the US criminal justice system. He makes the argument
\n that racism has been so effectively and insideously institutionalized
\n under the guise of the "War on Drugs" that we have liquidated an entire
\n generation of our minority population. The Dowbrigade assumes that
\n had he been born a member of a more obvious minority he would have
\n been
\n put away long ago…..<\/em><\/p>\n
\n administrative judge of Massachusetts, noted current characteristics
\n of US criminal justice. The American prison population recently went
\n over 2 million for the first time, putting the United States ahead of
\n Russia as the world capital of incarceration. Add to that number those
\n on parole or probation and the total under "correctional" control
\n grows to 7 million. Thirty years ago, one in 1,000 Americans was locked
\n up; today, almost five are. In famously liberal Massachusetts, the prison
\n population has grown, since 1980, from under 6,000 to almost 23,000.
\n In 2003, for the first time, the amount of money Massachusetts spent
\n on prisons was more than what it spent on higher education.<\/p>\n
\n males than anyone else, and from that springs the year’s fundamental
\n epiphany. Justice? Democracy? In the United States, according to Judge
\n Mulligan, one in three African-American males between the ages of 20
\n and 30 is "under correctional control." In places like Baltimore
\n and Washington, more than half are. The number of African-American men
\n in college is less than the number of those under supervision of the
\n courts.<\/p>\n
\n Boston Globe<\/a><\/p>\n\n