The discourse around black men in America has usually been that they are unwanted. Since the time of slavery, blacks have been viewed as lesser than whites. Even though laws guaranteeing equal rights and protections were passed after the Civil War and the Civil Rights movement, blacks have always been looked at as inferior, lazy, and criminal by other Americans. Since this discourse is so prevalent within America, it has worked against these men for decades, particularly within the criminal justice system. Following the Great Migration of blacks into northern cities in the 1950s and 1960s, as well as the swell of crime throughout the latter half of the twentieth century, politicians and police departments adopted “tough on crime” stances that disproportionately affected black men. Incarceration rates of this demographic skyrocketed once these measures were enacted. And since then, the discourse has been continuously reinforced that black men are dangerous and criminal through draconian criminal justice methods that only serve to cause more issues.
The discourse surrounding black men has developed over many years. Part of the reason that incarceration rates of black men drastically increased was that people believed that they were more dangerous than their white counterparts. Starting in the 1960s, presidential candidates started running on platforms that were themed around combatting crime. It is true that the crime rate was rising; Mark Mauer explains that this was caused by the baby boom, urbanization, and the rising unemployment of minority groups (Davis 2017, 34). Yet, as Mauer describes, “campaign theme[s] [were] marked by not very subtle racial overtones, from the candidate promising to save (white) American from (black male) ‘criminals’ and civil rights disrupters” (Davis 2017, 35). As Mauer explains, this would allow for the discourse on the criminal black male to officially move into the sphere of political discussion (Davis 2017, 35). Before the 1960s, the image of the black male being a criminal was a facet of American racism. However, once presidential candidates starting campaigning on these discourses, it had a huge impact on how people viewed the facet, allowing it to be an impetus for passing draconian laws and initiatives that would lead to the mass incarceration of black men.
These draconian laws and initiatives came in the form of mandatory prison sentences and plea bargains. Mandatory prison sentences came as a direct result of anti-drug legislation that was designed to show that criminals would not get off lightly for a crime. Plea bargains became the norm as defendants who were unable to secure good lawyers just accepted sentences that would stop them from having to go to trial and potentially incur even lengthier punishments. These measures were usually applied racially. Mauer points out that 63.7% of white defendants were able to plead to charges that did not carry mandatory sentences as opposed to 39.4% of black defendants (Davis 2017, 44). Even though black defendants may commit the same crimes as their white counterparts they are unable to secure pleas that do not require mandatory sentences because of inherent racism. This likely makes a black man’s crime look more damning than a white man’s. Instead of working on prevention or rehabilitation, the criminal justice system focuses on using cruel and excessive punishments that only serve to harbor hatred and distrust towards itself.
These punitive measures only became more drastic as time went on. In the 1990s, John DiIulio, a Princeton professor and aide of President Bush published an article entitled Moral Poverty the Coming of the Super-Predators Should Scare Us into Wanting to Get to the Root Causes of Crime a lot Faster, in which he claimed that the youthful generation was growing up without “loving, capable and responsible” adults to teach them how to behave (DiIulio 1995, 3). He called this the moral poverty theory and claimed that a new breed of criminal was being born with it because they grew up with parents who were incarcerated. Unlike criminals of the past, these new criminals, the super-predators, had “vacant stares and smiles and the remorseless eyes [that] were at once too frightening and too depressing” (DiIulio 1995, 2). After a religious epiphany, DiIulio tried to curtail fearmongering caused by his super-predator theory, but there was already a surge of state initiatives to move juvenile offenders into adult prison systems because they had been deemed too criminal to be let loose. These young men fit perfectly into the idea of a super-predator (Becker 2001, 3). Even though DiIulio did not write the legislation himself or directly tell legislators to take such harsh measures, his theory of moral poverty leading to super-predators played into the already existing discourse surrounding black men.
The discourse surrounding black men has caused the criminal justice system to enact initiatives and legislation that only serve to further cripple their communities. James Forman, a defense lawyer who often represented young black males, notes that the issue of mass incarceration is very personal to the black community as it affects almost everyone within it. In the introduction to his book Locking Up Our Own, Forman writes that
“in the years preceding and during our punishment binge, black communities were devastated by historically unprecedented levels of crime and violence. Spurred by a heroin epidemic, homicides doubled and tripled in D.C. and many other American cities throughout the 1960s. Two decades later, heroin would be eclipsed by crack, a terrifying drug whose addictive qualities and violent marketplace caused some contemporaries to label it ‘the worst thing to hit us since slavery’” (Forman 2018, 10).
Because of these drug epidemics and the crime that comes with them, violence in black communities is most often perpetrated by blacks and victimizes blacks. Forman also notes in the introduction that the criminal justice system in which he was working had an entirely black personnel and culture—the defendants, judges, juries, prosecutors, police, and mayor were all black (Forman 2018, 9). Every role within the criminal justice system that Forman describes is filled by black people, suggesting even further that violence in black communities is extremely enclosed.
However, it is also important to remember that a lot of the violence and incarceration that occurs in black communities is exacerbated by negative relationships with the police. Tracy Meares and Tom Tyler cite that about black Americans are 20-30% less likely to trust the police than their white counterparts (Davis 2017, 162). Black Americans do not trust police, in part, because they do not feel as though they are respected by police; instead, black Americans feel as though the police often behave in “demeaning, discourteous, illegal, and otherwise disrespectful ways” (Davis 2017, 164). Because of this, Meares and Tyler suggest that black Americans do not want to cooperate with police, and thus, policing loses its legitimacy. A stark divide is created between the black community and the criminal justice system, as the former believes that they are always going to be disrespected and looked down upon, and the latter believes that almost all behavior is criminal. The result of this is that crime reduction within black communities is minimal.
A way to combat this would be through the social and economic development of black communities combined with a strong backbone of trust in the police. Meares and Tyler write that “a trusted police force is central to providing the background of reassurance that encourages people to join together to revitalize their communities socially and economically by motivating people…[to] actively participate in community life” (Davis 2017, 170). In other words: when communities can prosper and can engage with their police forces in positive ways, crime will be reduced. When people have pride in their communities combined with trust that the police with protect and respect them, then people are more likely to turn to legal enterprises and live their lives freely and fearlessly. Turning to legal enterprises and living positively with a police presence will likely cause the incarceration rate of black men to fall.
For almost the entirety of America’s history, black people have been viewed as less-than white people. This led to a discourse surrounding black people that labeled them as poor, lazy, and criminal. This discourse was so persistent that to glean support for “tough on crime” policies, politicians tied the image of drug users and dealers to black people. This caused legislation and initiatives, such as mandatory sentences and plea bargains, to be passed that increased the likelihood that a black man would go to prison for a very long time. Police became more afraid of entering black neighborhoods, allowing the discourse of black criminality to make them believe that they would be completely unsafe around black people. Because of this, police started becoming more disrespectful towards black people, thus hindering the possibility that black people and police would have effective relationships. However, if the police and black communities worked together to revitalize their communities and build positive relationships with each other, then this could have a drastic effect on the crime rate. The crime rate would likely go down, and thus, the incarceration rate of black men would also fall. This would happen because, as Forman noted, crime in black communities is mostly perpetrated by blacks and victimizes blacks. If black communities were revitalized and police started working with those communities in a positive way, the discourse around black Americans would likely take on a new light, and black Americans would not consistently face suspicion that they are criminals.
References
Becker, E. (2001, February 08). As Ex-Theorist on Young 'Superpredators,' Bush Aide Has Regrets. Retrieved February 05, 2018, from http://www.nytimes.com/2001/02/09/us/as-ex-theorist-on-young-superpredators-bush-aide-has-regrets.html
Davis, A. J. (2017). Policing the Black Man: Arrest, Prosecution, and Imprisonment. New York, NY: Pantheon Books.
Dilulio, J. J., Jr. (1995, December 15). MORAL POVERTY THE COMING OF THE SUPER-PREDATORS SHOULD SCARE US INTO WANTING TO GET TO THE ROOT CAUSES OF CRIME A LOT FASTER. Chicago Tribune.
Forman, J., Jr. (2018). Locking Up Our Own: Crime and Punishment in Black America. S.l.: Farrar, Straus & Giroux.