America’s legacy of slavery, economic reliance on a captive labor force, and racial biases have resulted in a carceral system that has spiraled out of control. The passing of the 13th Amendment in 1865 guaranteed the end of chattel slavery, but it did not include those convicted of crimes. Racial and economic anxieties following the collapse of the plantation model resulted in the passage of Black Codes and, later, Jim Crow laws. Those laws enlisted the criminal justice system in its campaign for racial control. But the laws, fueled by racist stereotypes that associated blackness with criminality, ensured that large numbers of predominantly black men would be incarcerated indefinitely.

 

Many contemporary police tactics can be traced back to "slave patrols," or militia groups tasked with policing enslaved people’s behavior and re-capturing runaway slaves. After the civil war, police forces adopted slave patrol tactics, such as hyper surveillance and public beatings, to enforce segregation. Any behavior asserting Black Americans' freedom became illegal, including vagrancy laws disproportionately targeting Black Americans for crimes considered to be mischief or simply insulting gestures.

Today, the U.S. incarcerates enough people that if each state were its own separate country, each state would still rank above every other independent democracy in its incarceration rate.

Impacts of Mass Incarceration

• BIPOC Communities Black Americans are five times more likely to be stopped without reason than white Americans. Despite making up just under 1% of the population, Native men make up 2.3% of the prison population and Native women make up 2.5% of the women in jails and prisons. Though the U.S. does not keep records on Asian Americans in the prison system, Southeast Asians are five times more likely to be deported for criminal offenses than other immigrants.

• Disproportionate Impacts on BIPOC Communities. Upon release from prison, formerly incarcerated people have an increased difficulty obtaining jobs and housing. This impacts their ability to make a living after prison, including a 52% average decrease in annual earnings amounting to a loss of nearly $500,000 over a lifetime. Because Black and Latino people are disproportionately represented in prisons, the overwhelming loss of earnings from incarceration has deepened the inequities in Black and Brown communities.

• Women constitute the fastest-growing population in jails and prisons in the U.S. Those who enter jails and prisons are more vulnerable to a higher liklihood of drug addiction, mental illness. Women also have a higher likelihood for a history of abuse, leaving them at risk. Nearly one-third of all incarcerated women have been detained for issues related to sex work. 

• One in six trans people and over half of trans-POC have been incarcerated in their lifetime. Queer people, especially queer BIPOC, immigrants, and trans women are more likely to be sex workers. The passage of laws such as SESTA and FOSTA have increased the dangers of sex work by cracking down on online networks where sex workers could screen and flag potentially dangerous clients for other workers. The bill penalizes "the facilitation of prostitution," which carries a 10-year prison sentence. This has forced several sex workers onto the streets, where there is an increased risk of violence, incarceration, and significantly decreased wages. It is especially true for black trans women, who are more likely to be stopped and harassed by police. The criminalization of sex work and drug use avoids the root causes of the problem – discrimination, mental health issues, and poverty – thus making sex workers’ jobs more dangerous and increasing the risk of abuse.

 

What causes these disparities? People who enter the incarceration system are overwhelmingly poor, with two-thirds of detainees in jail reporting annual incomes of around $16,000 for men and $11,000 for women prior to arrest. However, the median bail for a felony rests at $10,000. Roughly 550,000 Americans not yet convicted of a crime sit in jail largely due to inability to afford bail. Nearly 75% of these individuals are accused of committing low-level drug offenses.