by Johanna, Leslyanne, Alicia, Sharifa
In the state of Texas, black houstonians have a higher rate of incarceration due to prejudice and discrimination in society. Although African Americans have tried on numerous occasions to fight back against this corrupted system, still there is no progress in the racial injustice being done through incarceration. Harris county in particular has been the target of state and federal excessive use of incarceration of African Americans for minor crimes like drugs, false accusations, and racial profiling.Texas in total has, 168 prisons, 22 jails, and 7 SAFP (Substance Abuse Felony Punishment Facility). Houston Harris County Prison has the highest prison rates in texas totaling 23,998 inmates incarcerated in total. In Texas there is totaling number of 47,812 African Americans incarcerated in federal prison out of 136,460 inmates. This sums up to state that 35% of the prisoners in Texas are African Americans, which is an insane percentage. Most of the crimes, blacks are convicted of are minor and non violent crimes.When comparing them to the white people who commit murders and serious crimes, their incarceration rates are much lower standing at about 31% of the texas prisons. They don’t even serve their full prison time. Double the amount of white people compared to african americans are sent to rehab centers instead of prisons for minor drug crimes. African American are not given the opportunity of being innocent until proven guilty, they are automatically seen as guilty and they are not given as many opportunities to get into rehabs instead of going to prison like white people.
Black Houstonian crime rates are at an all time high, due to early deaths or incarceration. In 2015 and 2016, blacks were killed by U.S police more than twice the rate of their white counterparts. About 7,000 people from five prisons, three treatment centers, two halfway houses had to be evacuated, as well as hundreds of prison employees. For nearly two weeks after Hurricane Harvey made landfall in Texas, inmates at a federal prison east of Houston lived in squalid conditions, were given minimal amounts of drinking water, and were restricted from freely communicating with loved ones. The poverty rate in the state of Texas alone is 18% and ranks 38 in the nation, as for black residents they’re the second highest ethnicity living in poverty at the rate of 24.5%. When it comes to homeownership in Texas, black texans occupy 12.5% in housing units but only 8.3% of blacks own their homes. As for white Texans they occupy 51.5% in housing units and with a larger number of owning homes at the rate of 58.8%. Furthermore, environmental concerns about toxic wastes after Hurricane Harvey are mainly affecting low income communities where minorities live at the rate of 73%. The EPA did not respond quickly to this crisis or considered what these communities would be facing if they did not act quickly to assist low income residents of their safety. In Harris County, 79% of superfund sites are located in non white areas; these sites are marked as flooded according to the EPA and minorities have been living on these sites for generations. It is unclear if climate change could cause these areas to become more prone to hurricanes and floods but if so, we now know that communities of color would be facing more losses every year.
African American men are incarcerated seven times the rate of white , while latinos are incarcerated at 2.6 times the rate of whites. In Taxes 68% of African Americans and Latinos are in prison. The incarcerated rate continue to increase . Most of the time the arrest is of racial profiling and drug offenses by the NAACP and the ACLU. African Americans receive longer sentencing, while a white person receives a shorter sentencing or counseling instead of serving their full sentence. African Americans and Latinos are entering prisons rather than leaving. Texas incarceration rates for African Americans are 3,734, and Latinos are 1,152 while white people stand at only 694. African Americans and latinos represent about 7 out of 10 prisoners in Texas. The texas criminal justice budge has exceeded.
The media is one of the greatest tools for mass communications throughout the nation. This includes broadcasting through television or radio, publishing through magazines and newspapers, and now through a new era the internet. These different types of platforms create a type of brainwashing in today’s society in which people especially African Americans are seen as horrible and even subhumans. Words are very powerful because they can persuade people into thinking anything. The perceived reality of African Americans creates a portrayal which pushes for a racist society. For decages African Americans fought for representation in the media and once acquired the media has turned that representation in order to shift the social status. This becomes a problem because we are all individuals, not a “type”. This does not only affect individual thinking but also opportunities that are taken away because of this nefarious perception. Often time African Americans are rejected from jobs because they do not “fit right”. On the streets African Americans are almost always seen as suspects by the police. These perception does not only create barriers for advancing in our society but it also make these portrayals seem “natural”. What the media fails to deliver is the reality that goes on in our society. The discrimination and disproportionate justice that occurs.
When Hurricane Harvey impacted Houston the media would constantly gloat about how much help was being sent to Houston to help all communities. But in fact there’s a limit, the aid that was sent were mostly being sent to whites or people with means, but other than that the rest of the population was left to fend for themselves. One part of this population was the prisoners, who majority of are blacks and hispanics. It was barely reported but these prisoners were “ left to suffer in horrifying, inhumane conditions power outages and insufficient access to food, water, and medicine”. The Nation reports “Inmates described cells flooded knee-high with water contaminated by urine and feces, as well as the inability to flush toilets, take showers, or change clothes for two weeks.” (Washington 2017) It is amazing that the United States being a “first-world” country treats its citizens like this. We have almost all the resources from all over the world but the government can not treat people like the human beings they are.
A keynote to point out is that “ In the Texas prisons affected by the storm, officials have either declined to comment on conditions or denied all inmate claims about the conditions.” (Washington 2017) This is what the media fails to report, the horrible conditions that prisoners had to deal with. Instead the media implies that because they are prisoners they do not deserve the same treatment, but criminal or not we are all humans. We should all be treated like our life matters and not be left to fend for ourselves, especially locked inside a prison where there limited things one can do. While the correction officers and other staff workers got to be safe, prisoners were left behind in horrid conditions explained above.
In the Article “Texas Prisoners Are Facing Horrid Conditions After Hurricane Harvey & Retaliation for Reporting Them “, this author discusses the texas prisoners and their experiences during hurricane Harvey. In this article they began speaking on a prisoner named Clifton Cloer, and the inmates experiences during hurricane Harvey that he told to his wife. His wife says he is housed in a state prison on the first floor of the stiles Unit in Beaumont, Texas. He described to his wife, the water reaching his kneecaps during the storm, experiencing the stench of the backed-up toilets. Another wife named Rachel Villalobos, speaks on the prisoners facing mistreatment during the flooding related to hurricane Harvey. She says her husband called her and told her that the prisoners were being fed two sandwiches a day and eight ounces of water. They also had to use the restroom in bags, so they could reserve the toilet water for drinking purposes. She tried telling her husband not to drink that water from the toilet because it was contaminated and full of bacteria, but his reply was that he did not care because if the water didn’t kill him the situation was going to kill him. When Rachel was questioned on the air conditioning in the prison, due to the power outage how were their conditions. She replied that they had no power, because their generators kept turning off so they went for about 4 to 5 days without any AC in houston’s gruesome heat . She also commented on the fact that she had received emails from the prison stating that inmates were dying due to the drinking of the contaminated toilet water. Many were passing out due to malnutrition.These experiences and their conditions during the hurricane were horrendous and sad and all due to the fact that they were not evacuated, and they did not take the right precautions. It could be inferred that because African Americans make up the majority of the prison population in Houston, that these horrid conditions are happening to them.
Overall, the entire nation have witnessed Texas residents who were devastated by Hurricane Harvey. However, not many have noticed the lack of empathy for the people due to the media disenfranchising the victims experiences. This crisis has mainly impacted black houstonians more than any other group because they’re already living paycheck to paycheck struggling to survive with very little opportunities to gain wealth and gain self sufficiency. We’ve established that poverty plays a huge factor in crimes and incarceration, which explains the lack of resources the black houstonian lives have, even after the Jim Crow Era.