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.
It cannot bring back and make whole those who suffered and died by a racist's criminal hand. But it can at least reaffirm our nation's commitment to seek the truth and make equal justice a reality.
Most states in the union where the death penalty is theoretically on the books don't have executions.
From the beginning, Mandela and Tambo was besieged with clients. We were not the only African lawyers in South Africa, but we were the only firm of African lawyers. For Africans, we were the firm of first choice and last resort.
Justice delayed is democracy denied.
America has an obligation to secure its borders, but it is wrong to pass laws that treat human beings as something less than human. If my father were alive, he would be in the forefront of the struggle for a fair and humane reform of our immigration laws.
But I wound like people to think I was an honest judge and a good judge. And I always tried the reach the best result in every case.
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