While mass incarceration is a national crisis, it was built locally.
Interpretation
The quote highlights how the issue of mass incarceration is not just a national problem but also rooted in local policies and actions.
James Forman Jr. emphasizes that the crisis of mass incarceration in the United States is a significant issue that arises from local decisions and circumstances. It suggests that to understand and address this problem, one must look closely at local justice systems, law enforcement practices, and community impact rather than solely viewing it as a nationwide phenomenon.
In practice
During a community meeting on social justice reform.
In court, judges tell people that their conviction carries a sentence of years, or probation. The truth is far more terrible. People convicted of crimes often become social outcasts for life, finding it difficult or impossible to rent an apartment, get a job, adopt children, access public benefits, serve on juries, or vote.
African-Americans have always viewed the protection of black lives as a civil rights issue, whether the threat comes from police officers or street criminals. Far from ignoring the issue of crime by blacks against other blacks, African-American officials and their constituents have been consumed by it.
A black man of my generation born in the late 1960s is more than twice as likely to go to prison in his lifetime then a black man of my father's generation. I was born after the Voting Rights Act, after the Civil Rights Act, after the Fair Housing Act.
Mass incarceration and its never-ending human toll will be with us until we come to see that no crime justifies permanent civic death.
The only news most people ever hear about the inner city comes from grim headlines; the only residents they can name are characters on 'The Wire.' Of course, ignorance of a community doesn't stop outsiders from having opinions about it or passing laws that govern it.
We need to hire more black police officers in this country because these are good jobs, and African Americans should have their fair share of good jobs. But we shouldn't do it because we think that's going to change policing. We have to push for police reform in other ways.
Because the Illinois death penalty system is arbitrary and capricious - and therefore immoral - I no longer shall tinker with the machinery of death.
Our capital system is haunted by the demon of error: error in determining guilt and error in determining who among the guilty deserves to die. What effect was race having? What effect was poverty having?
I understood at a young age that administrations come and go, but laws stay. So I decided to become a lawyer in order to help create a more just and peaceful world, not just in a fleeting moment but in a way that will endure from one generation to the next.
Nobody wants a judge to be subject to the political whim of the moment.
Justice delayed is justice denied.
If we continue to tell ourselves the popular myths about racial progress or, worse yet, if we say to ourselves that the problem of mass incarceration is just too big, too daunting for us to do anything about and that we should instead direct our energies to battles that might be more easily won, history will judge us harshly. A human rights nightmare is occurring on our watch.
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