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One of every fifteen African-American men are incarcerated compared to the one in every 106 white men. African-Americans account for 60 percent of those imprisoned while we only are 30 percent of the American population. The statistics are gruesome, yet display the reality. People of color have been falsely accused and misrepresented in the criminal justice system, and the abuse id growing even stronger over the years. Incarceration is the new slavery; the prison is the plantation, and we are still the slaves. The criminal justice system has imposed a formatted slavery that is legally modified.
Twenty-two year old Kalief Browder who had been incarcerated and put in solitary confinement killed himself at his family's home after he was released. Browder was placed in Rikers Island at the age of 16 after he had allegedly stole a book bag. He spent three years in prison without any trial. His imprisonment gained public support when a video showing a guard and several gang members beating Browder was released. His case was dismissed in 2013, but the scars that Browder suffered were far from being healed. Since he was released, he inflicted multiple suicide attempts and he was prescribed psychiatric medication after suffering from depression. While most teens in high school prepare for prom and graduation, Browder spent the most exciting part of his high school career starved and abused in solitary confinement. Before recently killing himself, Browder told his mom, "Ma, I can't take it anymore".
Twenty-eight year old Sandra Bland reportedly hung herself in her Texas jail cell after being detained for three days. Bland was arrested on Friday for allegedly assaulting a police officer during a routine traffic stop. However, video taken by a bystander shows police on top of Bland who was on the ground questioning why they were being rough on her. The sheriff's deputies say that she died from "self-inflicted asphyxiation".
After Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation in 1863, only slaves in the southern states in rebellion were free. However, those slaves had a hard time adjusting to freedom because slavery was their comfort zone, and they were still enslaved under the measures of the sharecropping system. Similarly, jail for the African-American, males in particular, has become a comfort zone that is difficult to break free from. Many blacks released from prison have trouble finding employment, and basically living life because they were forced to become dependent on a system. Even when he is out of jail, the black man is not free. That is why so many of them go back to jail.