What Have We Done?: Mass Incarceration and the Targeting of Albany’s Black Males by Federal, State, and Local Authorities

Executive Summary

  This is the third in a series of three reports released by the Center for Law and Justice in 2012.  Two earlier reports described the alarming overrepresentation of minorities in the Capital Region criminal and juvenile justice systems.  In this report, the Center documents the devastation wrought by recent arrest sweeps conducted in Albany minority communities by federal, state, and local authorities; as a result of the sweeps, scores of Albany’s young African-American men have been sentenced to more than 600 years in prison for non-violent offenses.

This additional punishment meted out to minorities for drug-related offenses upholds Albany County’s dubious distinction as one of the most racially-disparate sentencing jurisdictions in the state.  Section I of this report presents statistical data demonstrating the local impact of the “War on Drugs”: the disproportionate representation of minorities among arrests, convictions, and sentences to state prison in Albany County.  In one national study, Albany County ranked 5th in the nation in the ratio of African American to white drug admission rates.

Although steps have recently been taken to reduce inequities in state and federal drug crime sentencing, law enforcement officials are now using a new tool to arrest and prosecute drug-related crimes alleged to have been committed by minorities: racketeering laws.   Section II documents how young African-American men from Albany are now being subjected to additional years in prison, in some cases for committing no new crimes.  Though law enforcement officials claimed to have been targeting serious offenses, many of Albany’s black males were sentenced to serve a third of their young lives behind bars for merely having associated in one way or another — either through a phone call, by enjoying similar music, by attending the same social function, or through some other seemingly innocuous connection — with those suspected of criminal activity.  Federal sweeps incarcerated 33 of Albany’s young African-American  males for a total of nearly 300 years, for non-violent crimes; a single state sweep sent 17 non-violent offenders, all minorities, to prison for a total of 317 years, for non-violent crimes.

Section III provides historical context demonstrating that the mass incarceration of Albany’s young black men is rooted in structural racism that perpetuates a racial caste system.  Sustaining an era of the new Jim Crow, the “War on Drugs” launched in response to civil rights legislation in the 1960s replicates post-Civil War laws passed to discriminate against blacks in response to Reconstruction-era constitutional amendments.  Just as the vast majority of those “hanged, shot and roasted alive” in nineteenth-century lynchings  were not even charged with the crime (rape) for which the “sentence” was imposed, most imprisoned for hundreds of years as a result of twenty-first century Albany drug sweeps were sentenced not for the heinous crimes of murder, robbery, and assault trumpeted by investigators, but for non-violent convictions.

Section IV describes the devastating individual and community consequences of mass incarceration.  Section V explains that the enormous toll mass incarceration exacts on minority communities across the country can only be addressed through a two-pronged approach:  a commitment by government entities to address the impact of mass incarceration, and a grass-roots social movement to educate and mobilize communities regarding “The New Jim Crow.”

Click Here to read full report

Executive Summary

This report, the second in a series of three Center for Law and Justice analyses of the impact of federal, state and local criminal justice system practices on minorities in the Capital Region, examines “Disproportionate Minority Contact” within the Capital Region juvenile
justice system.

Section I of the report describes the state of the juvenile justice system in New York, and the widely-acknowledged need for change. From 2000 to 2008, the number of juveniles in residential facilities fell by 26% nationally, and by more than 30% in New York State. Racial and ethnic disparities, however, persist. Though African American and Latino youth comprise only 44% of the state’s youth population, they represent more than 80% of placements in New York’s juvenile institutional facilities. This phenomenon, in conjunction with other disturbing characteristics of the juvenile justice system, motivated the State’s two most recent governors to insist on systemic change.
Section II describes the juvenile justice system process, explaining key terms including  “juvenile delinquent,” “juvenile arrest,” “detention,” “petition,” “delinquency finding,” and “confinement.”
Section III presents data that clearly indicate the disproportionate representation of minorities, compared to their representation in the general population, at all stages of the juvenile justice process. In Albany County, minority youth represented 30% of the local juvenile population, yet accounted for 55% of juvenile arrests, 85% of secure juvenile detentions, 75% of
juvenile cases petitioned, 78% of cases with a finding of juvenile delinquency, and 83% of cases resulting in probation placements. In Rensselaer County, minority youth represented 18% of the local juvenile population, yet accounted for 42% of juvenile arrests, 48% of juvenile secure detentions, 59% of cases petitioned, 67% of cases with a finding of juvenile delinquency, and 40% of cases resulting in probation placement. In Schenectady County, minority youth represented 29% of the local juvenile population, yet accounted for 54% of juvenile arrests, 78% of juvenile secure detentions, 78% of cases petitioned, 78% of cases with a finding of juvenile delinquency, and 84% of cases resulting in probation placement. In all three counties, minorities accounted for a disproportionate number of individuals in juvenile correctional facilities, though the total number was below 10 in each county.

Section IV describes the devastating consequences of involvement with the juvenile justice system, including the possibility of placement in one of the state’s secure confinement facilities, which have been found to foster brutal results. Most troublesome is how much more likely it is for children of color to become enmeshed in the juvenile justice system through such avenues as the “school to prison pipeline.” Children who are incarcerated as minors are likely to be incarcerated as adults.

Section V provides specific recommendations for improvement, encouraging Capital Region juvenile justice officials and the communities they serve to acknowledge Disproportionate Minority Contact, embrace the need for change, and work together to save our children. Click Here to view full report

The Center for Law and Justice was founded by Dr. Alice Green in 1985. For the past 25 years, the Center has been serving the low-income and disadvantaged communities of New York through education and advocacy.

For the past 26 years, the Center for Law and Justice, Inc., a tax-exempt community-based organization, has provided quality criminal justice education, advocacy, and public policy analyses, primarily for the Capital District community. Throughout this time, we have been at the forefront of identifying and raising important criminal justice issues and working to find solutions to the social problems that beset our community. Last year we served more than 4,000 residents who needed legal guidance, criminal justice information, referrals and other empowering services. We did all of this with extremely limited financial resources and the valuable assistance and support of college interns, volunteers and members.

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Summary of The New Jim Crow by Michelle Alexander

More African Americans are under the control of the criminal justice system today – in prison or jail, on probation or parole – than were enslaved in 1850. Discrimination in housing, education, employment, and voting rights, which many Americans thought was wiped out by the civil rights laws of the 1960s, is now perfectly legal against anyone labeled a “felon.” And since many more people of color than whites are made felons by the entire system of mass incarceration, racial discrimination remains as powerful as it was under slavery or under the post-slavery era of Jim Crow segregation.

This is the premise of a book which has sparked a new social movement: Michelle Alexander’s The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness (The New Press, New York 2010). Alexander describes how mass incarceration today serves the same purpose as pre-Civil War slavery and the post-Civil War Jim Crow laws: to maintain a racial caste system. Alexander defines “racial caste” as a racial group locked into an inferior position by law and custom. She asserts that Jim Crow and slavery were caste systems, and that our current system of mass incarceration is also a caste system: “The New Jim Crow.” The original Jim Crow laws, after slavery ended, promoted racial discrimination in public housing, employment, voting, and education. The powerful Civil Rights struggles of the 1950s and 1960s seemingly ended the Jim Crow era by winning the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965. The book demonstrates, however, that the racial caste system has not ended; it has simply been redesigned.

Alexander explains how the criminal justice system functions as a new system of racial control by targeting black men through the “War on Drugs.” The Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1986, for example, included far more severe punishment for distribution of crack (associated with blacks) than powder cocaine (associated with whites). Civil penalties, such as not being able to live in public housing and not being able to get student loans, have been added to the already harsh prison sentences.

“Today,” says Alexander, “a criminal freed from prison has scarcely more rights, and arguably less respect, than a freed slave or a black person living ‘free’ inMississippiat the height of Jim Crow.”

The author argues that nothing short of a major social movement can end the new caste system. Alexander challenges us to establish a grass-roots movement to deal with  the very foundation of the mass incarceration system: “If the movement that emerges to end mass incarceration does not meaningfully address the racial divisions and resentments that gave rise to mass incarceration, and if it fails to cultivate an ethic of genuine care, compassion and concern for every human being – of every class, race, and nationality – within our nation’s borders, including poor whites, who are often pitted against poor people of color, the collapse of mass incarceration will not mean the death of racial caste in America. Inevitably a new system of racialized social control will emerge … No task is more urgent for racial justice today than ensuring thatAmerica’s current racial caste system is its last.”

Alexander’s call is being answered through the rise of a new movement to end mass incarceration and its racial underpinnings. The New Jim Crow movement is formed of  loosely-linked local study groups reading and discussing The New Jim Crow, and beginning to develop a grass-roots strategy first for exposing the injustice of mass incarceration, and then for challenging and ultimately ending it. At this moment of global awakening in the face of injustice, the focus on mass incarceration and racial injustice could not be more timely.

The Disproportionate Impact of the Criminal Justice System on People of Color in the Capital Region 

Executive Summary:

This report, the first in a series of three by the Center for Law and Justice examining the impact of federal, state and local criminal justice system practices on minorities in the Capital Region, details the overrepresentation of minorities among Capital Region arrests, convictions, and sentences to state prison. It further chronicles the devastating impact the criminal justice system has on minority individuals and communities, and makes recommendations for change.

Section I of the report presents statistical data culled from state and local criminal justice agencies and the United States Census Bureau to demonstrate the disproportionate representation of minorities among arrests, convictions, and sentences to state prison in Albany, Rensselaer, and Schenectady counties.  The percentage of Capital Region arrests and convictions that are minorities is twice their representation in the general population, and the percentage of minorities among prison sentences is as high as almost four times greater than their representation in the general population.  Contrary to the sometimes asserted contention that this is due to a higher rate of commission of crimes by minorities, the literature indicates that this disproportionality is more likely due to facially neutral policies that have racially disparate effects.

Section II explains the concept of the “collateral consequences” of a criminal conviction:  conditions that, beyond the actual incarcerative sentence, often attach automatically upon conviction.  Conviction and/or incarceration can impose highly restrictive educational, employment, housing, and civic conditions on an individual, including losing the right to vote.  In addition to the destructive consequences of a criminal conviction to individuals, mass incarceration of people of color wreaks havoc in the neighborhoods in which they reside, resulting in severely impoverished communities.

Section III describes the historic impact of the federal “War on Drugs” and New York’s Rockefeller Drug Laws on the mass incarceration of Capital Region people of color.  In 2002, Albany County had one of the highest drug crime prison admission rates in the entire country, and one of the most racially disproportionate rates.  More recent data from 2011 indicate that Albany County maintains its dubious distinction of having comparatively higher (and more racially disparate) prison admission rates than other jurisdictions in the state.

Section IV examines the relationships between the police department and the community in the cities of Albany, Troy and Schenectady.  All three departments have expressed a commitment to “community policing,” and the extent to which each department has operationalized this commitment is assessed.

Section V considers the Capital Region statistics in the context of “The New Jim Crow” movement, which asserts that mass incarceration serves to maintain a racial caste system that denies education, employment, housing, and voting rights to those who carry the label “felon,” in much the same way that the post-Civil War Jim Crow laws denied rights to blacks.  Lastly, Section VI provides recommendations for change.

To View the Full Report Click Here

Tenth Edition

This directory offers community residents, specifically those convicted of a crime and those returning from jail or prison, a variety of legal information and a listing of public and private resources and legal services that are available in the Capital District of New York and are free of charge or offered at a reduced cost. Click Here to be directed to this document.