Analysis Of Mass Incarceration In Ernest Gaines A Lesson Before Dying

Prison is a dark, lonely and terrible place. A majority of people incarcerated are people of color. Mass incarceration is mainly concentrated on racial and ethnic minorities. In A Lesson Before Dying by Ernest Gaines, it is shown that no matter your background or your story, you will still be targeted because of the color of your skin. Brown assures that The United States has only five percent of the world’s population, but twenty five of the world’s prison population. This is a huge problem. Throughout history and research it is shown how this damages the community, families, society, and the people incarcerated themselves.

In A Lesson Before Dying by Ernest Gaines, in the opening chapter it is shown how people of color cannot be trusted.

Being imprisoned and being incarcerated are different but very similar ideas. Martensen writes how, “ Mass incarceration attributes this change to the ‘war on crime’ that specifically seems to target racial minorities,” (3). It is clearly shown how people of color in the urban areas are being targeted to get locked up. She also describes, “Imprisonment becomes mass imprisonment when it ceases to be the incarceration of individual offenders and becomes a systematic imprisonment of an entire population,” (2). When society begins to target a whole race population it becomes racial discrimination, causing the downfall of certain people’s lives. When a population declines, so does the world, the economy, and

Crutchfield writes that, “African American and Latino drug dealers are more likely to be arrested because of their activity”. Minorities have to be extra careful about their actions. Martensen states that, “Blacks and latinos make up seventy percent of the criminal population and in 2000, eight percent of all black men and three percent of all hispanic men were incarcerated in jail or prison,” (2). It was key interest among politicians who called for the “war on crime” which just turned into “war on drugs”, and the demonization of people of color.

Ronald Reagan aggressively pursued longer prison sentences as a part of the war on drugs as well. Racial minorities have become accustomed to being afraid...scared to be themselves, and more used to being discriminated against. It was later proved that the war on drugs was excessively hard minority individuals. Forman even stated that, “an aggressive undercover unit that wound up killing eighteen people during the first two years… seventeen of them were black,” (2). This is clearly a problem to society. Who is the real