Bonus Solo Episode: America’s Mass Incarceration Problem With Taylor Rae Almonte-Roman

This episode is supported by the University Life Social Justice Mini-Grant Program. To learn more about the Social Justice Mini-Grant Program visit: https://universitylife.columbia.edu/social-justice-mini-grant-program.

Summary

Transitioning from her anti-racism newsletter, the host critiques the U.S. prison system's mass incarceration, systemic racism, and the 13th amendment's impact. Insights from teaching in correctional facilities and research underscore the system's injustice. The episode addresses racial disparities, the flawed bail system, and promotes the Bell project and '13th' as resources. Supported by Columbia University's Social Justice Mini Grant program, the host seeks to illuminate prison system issues.

Transcription

Taylor Rae Almonte-Roman

Hey, hey, welcome back. This is another solo episode of “On the Outside”.

I have a really special solo episode for you guys today. While my solo episodes are usually without a script and me just speaking from the heart a little bit more anecdotal, a little bit more personal. This week, I'm kind of bringing it back to my roots. I started out my platform with a weekly anti-racism newsletter in 2020 and that developed in so many ways.

First, it was called a Black Lives Matter newsletter. Then it was called an anti racism newsletter. Eventually, it was just called your weekly newsletter because I started branching out into so many different marginalized communities and speaking on so many different topics today, I'm kind of going back to those roots. I did a lot of research for today's episode kind of just jumping off of last week.

Last week, I spoke about my personal experience teaching inside of correctional facilities and just what that is on a day to day in my own personal and honestly, limited experience. I've only been teaching for a year and in two facilities to some people that might feel like a ton to others that might seem like I haven't spent any time at all getting to know the system.

So that being said that was a lot more personal. This week is a lot more data driven. I've done so much research on the United States prison system, whether that's been for papers in my master's program in human rights because my concentration is on mass incarceration. Whether that's been for previous newsletters that I was just speaking about.

I have two that are on the prison Industrial Complex. I have multiple ones on the intersection of racism in our prison system. I have tons of newsletters. I have ones on the bail system, just a lot of different areas. So for years, I've really been thinking about talking about and researching our prison system in America. Now, let me be honest with you guys just right off the bat.

If you didn't get this from last week's episode, you're definitely going to understand that my perspective is that America's prison systems are just unjust unfair and honestly, beyond repair. I don't truly believe that there is any way that we can make our prison system better in and of itself. I feel like it is inherently founded on this punitive system that has nothing to do with rehabilitation and everything to do with punishment.

And you're never going to make me believe that that is the way that we should go. This episode is not to convince you to think the same as me, this episode is because if you're here, you kind of already know where my heart is at and you already know where my research is at and you already know what my perspective is. So I want to share some of the data that led me to this perspective and led me to have these opinions and beliefs and led me to the specific area of research that I'm focusing on in my master's program. And also to the work that I do teaching inside what this episode is not, is me discussing the ways in which we should restructure the prison system or how individuals should be punished. I feel that we can all agree that when someone does harm to someone else, it's not OK that we should find a way to fix that problem. But there are so many systemic issues that underline the reason why individuals commit what we call crimes.

And that's not what I'm going to get into today because friends, we don't got that much time that being said, I'm so excited to share this information, especially if it is your first time hearing it because I think it is going to be impactful eye opening and hopefully lead you to find some really amazing resources to continue to learn. And of course, I'll provide those at the end and also in the show notes.

So let's get into it in today's episode. I really want to focus on mass incarceration versus the history of prisons in America. And what I mean by that is there have been significant, pivotal moments that really led to a prison boom, just a massive increase in incarcerated individuals in America, which has led us to have the largest incarcerated population in the world.

Despite not having the largest population in our country, we have the most amount of people in prisons of any country on the planet. And I really want to focus on how that came to be mass incarceration is a unique phenomenon to the United States while there's prison in other countries. Absolutely. And there are atrocities within those prisons.

Our sheer volume of incarcerated individuals is truly shocking. First and foremost, I want to note the way that I refer to previously incarcerated people and incarcerated individuals. Those that have been inside have specifically and candidly shared with me that being called names like inmates is not something that feels good to them and not something that centers their humanity.

So if you're listening to this, I hope that something you take away from the episode is to really refer to individuals as incarcerated or previously incarcerated, something that was done to them, not who they are. Let's keep going. So the US prison system dramatically increased between 19 72,000 growing by about 400% 400%. And again, resulting in the highest rate of incarceration in the world in the world.

This rise was not by accident. Officials and policymakers have been making deliberate decisions for years and years which I will get into a little bit more specifically that have grown the prison population. This includes allowing slavery by another name to continue through the use of the 13th amendment. The 13th amendment allows slavery specifically for those who are imprisoned.

This led to the first notable prison boom. In 1865 the 13th amendment reads neither slavery nor involuntary servitude except as a punishment for crime. Whereof the party shall have been duly convicted shall exist within the United States or any place subject to their jurisdiction. It clearly says, except as a punishment for crime, this legalized slavery and made it part of America's system forever and led to the first boom in the prison population.

This is no coincidence. Prisons began growing because the same country that institutionalized slavery saw an opportunity to continue to get unpaid labor done. A century later, a larger boom occurred as politicians took steps to curb gains from the civil rights movement and to link crime with race through the war on crime. Southern strategy and war on drugs.

Politicians began to focus on law and order messages with explicit racial undertones setting the stage for the next dramatic increase in incarceration which began in 1970 with a rise in harsher drug laws, punitive policing and longer sentencing. So I bring it back to that statistic I said at the beginning of this episode that from 1970 to 2000, the prison population grew by about 400%.

I'm actually writing a paper right now on the racialization of crack and the way that crack was linked to a black population and cocaine was linked to a white population. The sentencing laws for crack were so incredibly harsh compared to those linked to cocaine. This is one example of the way in which the war on drugs, racialized drug use, even though Black Americans do not disproportionately use drugs compared to white Americans.

Something else I really want to touch on is our bail system in America. The current bail system assumes that the best way to get someone to return to court is by requiring money from them as collateral. So if you're arrested, this is what happens, either you or your family can pay bail and you'll be released if you come back when you're supposed to, you get your money back.

The US constitution prohibits excessive bail. But unfortunately, today's judges routinely set bail amounts that exceed what most people can afford. So what happens? Jails are full of people waiting for trial. That means individuals presumed innocent on paper innocent until proven guilty are being held for weeks, months or even years as they wait for trial every day, nearly half a million people sit behind bars because they cannot afford bail.

Half a million people is 500,000 people, 500,000 is equivalent to Madison Square Garden being filled 26 times to capacity. 500,000 people means an average size school bus, for example, would be in a caravan of 9804 school buses that would stretch 94.7 miles. So that's Philadelphia to New York in a row. 9804 school buses full of people. That's how many people are sitting in jail right now who are unable to pay bail.

Americans who are presumed innocent until proven guilty and held behind bars for days, weeks or even years to be crystal clear. They have not been convicted of a single crime. So what happened then judges are more likely to set higher bail amounts for people of color. So this injustice disproportionately harms black and brown communities.

Eventually something like this may occur. A prosecutor makes you an offer you plead guilty and you get probation and you get to go home, refuse and you sit in jail until the case is resolved again. That could take years. What would you do? Many people end up pleading guilty even if they're innocent, they just want to go home as a result. They end up with a criminal record that will follow them for the rest of their life, creating barriers to so many things like voting, holding public

office, employment, serving jury duty, owning firearms, international travel, public benefits, public housing and parental benefits. These are the repercussions that individuals may face by taking this deal. So they don't have to spend another day sitting in jail Americans who may be completely innocent and are innocent until proven guilty.

The last thing that I want to touch on is the ways in which race is inextricably tied. The last thing that I want to touch on is the way in which race is inextricably tied to our prison system. According to an extensive and detailed 2021 report by the sentencing project, which is an organization whose research I use a lot of for my research at school.

This is some of their findings. Black Americans are incarcerated in state prisons at nearly five times the rate of white Americans while only accounting for 13% of the population five times nationally. One in 81 black adults in the United States is serving time in a state prison. Wisconsin leads the nation in black imprisonment rates in 12 states.

More than half the prison population is black. These states are Alabama, Delaware, Georgia, Illinois, Louisiana, Maryland, Michigan, Mississippi, New Jersey, North Carolina, South Carolina and Virginia. Seven states maintain a black white disparity larger than 9 to 1. California, Connecticut, Iowa, Maine, Minnesota, New Jersey and Wisconsin Latinx individuals are incarcerated in state prisons at a rate that is 1.3 times.

The incarceration rate of whites, ethnic disparities are highest in Massachusetts. These statistics are staggering but they're not shocking black and Latinx individuals are not inherently more likely to exhibit criminal behavior, but what they are more likely to face is racism and discrimination. Systemic inequality ranging from education to health care, redlining to everyday microaggressions, employment success and the list goes on and on.

We know that racism is real and racism is the reason for these statistics. The experience of incarceration in and of itself is harsh punishment. But millions of people, 95% of whom will eventually be released and return home and brutal conditions that harm their chances to thrive when they do come home. We have to center human dignity and reaffirm fundamental human rights for those behind bars while losing your freedoms is already punishment enough and a punishment that does

not lead statistically to better outcomes or lower rates of recidivism. It seems like our prison system is bent on not only taking away individuals freedoms, but also creating an environment where so much harm is done. My work is all about centering that human dignity, bringing back the humanity to those individuals who are constantly forgotten and made to feel as if their lives do not matter.

I hope that some of this information today resonated with you guys. There's so much to say, I encourage you to check out and donate to the Bell project, which is an organization that I've worked with for a really long time and look at their research also via institute and the sentencing project have amazing resources to continue to learn more. I also think that the movie 13th is a valuable resource, especially if you're very new to this material. You can also still access all of my previous newsletters which I'll also include in the show notes. This was a very high level snapshot of our prison system and how mass incarceration operates in the United States. And I hope that you continue to learn more.

This episode is supported by the University Life, Social Justice mini grant program. To learn more about the Social justice mini grant program, you can find the link to their website in the show notes. See you out there.

References

Ghandnoosh, Nazgol, Celeste Barry, and Luke Trinka. 2023. “One in Five: Racial Disparity in Imprisonment — Causes and Remedies.” The Sentencing Project. December 7, 2023. https://www.sentencingproject.org/publications/one-in-five-racial-disparity-in-imprisonment-causes-and-remedies/.

The Sentencing Project. 2022. “Research - Get the Facts.” The Sentencing Project. September 8, 2022. https://www.sentencingproject.org/research/?gad_source=1&gclid=CjwKCAjwzN-vBhAkEiwAYiO7oBFTU3ZKZILh-LmdRnXaFi7OKb_d5Awcausj_BRcA56vZp0kPhaW0RoCW8oQAvD_BwE.

Vera Institute. n.d. “Dignity behind Bars.” Vera Institute of Justice. https://www.vera.org/ending-mass-incarceration/dignity-behind-bars.

“Vera Institute of Justice.” 2019. Vera. 2019. https://www.vera.org/ending-mass-incarceration.