By: Tracey A. Casseus
ITHACA, NY—“Our lives are in the human struggle, the struggle is painful and deep, the struggle holds death and life, out of the struggle of the now we will try to create a more human world for the future, the past is approved, the present is received, the future is open.”
This was a saying often used by Lawrence Hayes throughout his 20 years spent in prison.
Hayes was born and raised in Harlem, NY and became a member of the Black Panther Party in 1968. In August of 1971, he was arrested for acting in concert at a murder scene of a policeman. Hayes was sentenced to death, and was one of the five New York State death row inmates awaiting execution at the time of the U.S. Supreme Court’s 1972 Furman vs. Georgia decision that abolished the death penalty. His sentence was commuted to life with parole.
Hayes was paroled in 1991 and since then has become a spokesman against the death penalty. He has spoken at several colleges and universities and is a member of the international abolition organization, Hands Off Cain. Hayes is the Co-Founder of Campaign To End The Death Penalty and has dedicated his life to ending the death penalty.
“The criminal justice system, of all the systems that have been modified and changed and reformed over the years, has not been touched,” says Hayes.
Although the United States contributes to only 5 percent of the world’s population, the nation incarcerates nearly 25 percent of the world’s prisoners.
According to the U.S. Department of Justice’s Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) at yearend 2008, federal and state correctional authorities had jurisdiction over 1,610,446 prisoners and the prison population increased by 12,201 prisoners from 2007 to 2008.
Estimated number of sentenced prisoners under state or federal jurisdiction from 2000-2008
That means about 1 in every 133 U.S residents were in custody of state, federal prison or local jails.
The incarceration rate was 754 inmates per 100,000 U.S. residents for inmates held in custody of state or federal prisons or in local jails and by the end of 2008 the total incarcerated population reached 2,424,279 inmates up 0.2% or 5,038 inmates from yearend 2007.
“There’s a lot more racial bias in the criminal justice system than people don’t realize,” says Alan Bean executive director of Friends of Justice.
And statistics of the prison population under state and federal jurisdiction seem to agree with Bean’s statement.
Estimated number of sentenced prisoners under state or federal jurisdiction by race from 2000-2008
According to the BJS, black males were incarcerated at a rate six and half times higher than white males. In 2008 about 34 percent of all sentenced prisoners were white, 38 percent were black, and 20 percent were Hispanic.
Nevertheless, in keeping with BJS statistics, the number of imprisoned blacks has declined by about 18,400 since yearend 2000, reducing the total number of blacks in prison to about 591,900 at yearend 2008.
On the contrary, the numbers of sentenced white and Hispanic offenders have increased since 2000. The number of imprisoned whites has risen by 57,200 since 2000 to reach 528,200 at yearend 2008. The total number of imprisoned Hispanics rose by 96,200 to reach 313,100 at the close of 2008.
While 20 states reported a decline in the number of prisoners under their jurisdiction in 2008 for a total decrease of 9,719 prisoners, 29 states and the federal prison system reported a combined increase of 21,920 prisoners at yearend.
The United States government seems ready to review its criminal justice system. In March Sen. James Webb (D-Va.) introduced a bill in an effort to reform the criminal justice system.
The National Criminal Justice Commission Act of 2009 proposes the creation of a blue-ribbon commission to extensively review every aspect of the criminal justice system. Webb wants to work toward reducing the overall incarceration rate while refocusing efforts toward locking up truly dangerous criminals and gang leaders, decreasing prison violence, establishing meaningful reentry programs for ex-offenders, reforming the nation’s drug policies and improving treatment of the mentally ill.
The legislation has already garnered wide bipartisan support in Congress and from interest groups representing a range of backgrounds and political viewpoints.
On Sen. Webb’s Web Site explaining the bill he states,
“America’s criminal justice system has deteriorated to the point that it is a national disgrace. Its irregularities and inequities cut against the notion that we are a society founded on fundamental fairness. Our failure to address this problem has caused the nation’s prisons to burst their seams with massive overcrowding, even as our neighborhoods have become more dangerous. We are wasting billions of dollars and diminishing millions of lives. We need to fix the system.”
