Systemic inequality has been built into the criminal justice system. Its origins came from the eras during and immediately following slavery.
way to target users specific to the African Ameri- can community. Response from law enforcement for crack offenses was harsh prison sentences without ac- cessible opportunities for treatment and mental health support during and after an individual’s time in prison. In 1986, the Anti-Drug Abuse Act was passed. The act handed the most se- vere punishment to crack offenders. A powder cocaine offender could possess 100 times the amount of cocaine as a crack cocaine offender, yet both offenders would receive five-year mini- mum sentences. The act was not amended until 2010 when the 100-1 ratio was reduced to 18-1. Today, a report from the NAACP estimates more than five times as many white people use drugs compared to Black people. However, Black
people represent more than half the population of people in state prison for a drug offense. Ac- cording to the PREA Resource Center, if African Americans and Hispanics were arrested at the same rate as white people, incarceration rates would decline by more than 50 percent. As im- portant conversations continue to center around racial equality, one can only acknowledge the need to demand reform within this country’s prison system and criminal justice system at large.
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