Sociology Exam #3 Flashcards
created a 100 to 1 sentencing disparity for crack vs. powder cocaine possession; mandated a minimum 5 year sentence for possessing 500g of powder and 5g of crack
Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1986
people of color more likely to use crack cocaine that powder cocaine; act of institutional racism
Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1986
80% of those imprisoned under Act were Black
Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1986
laws that restricted Black people’s right to own property, conduct business, buy and lease land, and move freely through public spaces
Black Codes
criminalized men who were out of work; outlawed begging, loitering, walking at night, walking without a purpose, panhandling, going from business to business looking for work, etc
Vagrancy Laws
Central element were Vagrency Laws
Black Codes
effectively outlawed being Black in America
Black Codes
forced prisoners to work for private companies for no pay, often on the same field they work when they were enslaved
Convict Leasing Programs
these programs were introduced in Southern prisons in order to uphold the Southern economic system (which was built upon slavery and suffered when slavery became illegal
Convict Leasing Programs
reduced the sentencing disparity for crack vs. powder cocaine from 100:1 to 18:1; better but still unequal
Fair Sentencing Act of 2010
used to control Black people after the abolition of slevery; between 1880 and 1930, mobs murdered over 2,300 Black men, women and children
Lynch Mobs
the White public justified lynching as protecting White women from Black men; _____ thrived on a widespread belief that Black men were violent predators
Lynch Mobs
“Offenses” used to justify lynching were incredibly borad, subjective
Lynch Mobs
upheld inequality:
- Upheld White supremacy: Black people could not find refuge in the law
- Upheld White patriarchy: increased white women’s dependence on white men
Lynch Mobs
system incited by the prison boom, “tough on crime” policies, and the War on Drugs
Mass Incarceration
reflects the reality that the US criminalizes and incarcerates more of its own people than any other country in the history of the world, and inflicts enormous harm on already marginalized groups, primarily poor people of color
Mass Incarceration
Consequence: criminal record significantly reduces one’s chance of finding a job
Consequence of Mass Incarceration
Consequence: ex-convicts are denied acces to social services such as financial aid for college, food stamps, and public housing; ex-convicts have lower average incomes
Consequence of Mass Incarceration
Consequence: family consequences, such as limiting marriage and parenthood prospects/abilities
Consequence of Mass Incarceration
Consequence: reproduction of inequality; contrary to unequal outcomes in terms of voting rights, access to social services, income and wealth, health, family, and well-being
Consequences of Mass Incarceration
largely due to harsher sentencing policies, achieved through political moves
Prison Boom
Was caused by harsher sentencing policies, not a rise in crime or drug use
Prison Boom
Only 12% of the rise in incarceration 1980-1996 was driven by a rise in crime rates
Prison Boom
88% of the rise in incarceration was driven by changes in sentencing policies:
- limits on parole
- mandatory minimum sentencing
- Mandatory life sentences for non-violent crimes like drug offenses
- 3 strikes law
Prison Boom
imposes life sentence for third offense, even if all 3 offenses are nonviolent crimes
3 Strikes Law
Drug arrests quadrupled
Prison Boom
simultaneously ciminalized and reinforced Black poverty
Prison Labor Camps
arrest rates for marijuanna possession by race are substantially higher for Blacks than Whites, though drug use is not
Prison Boom
a form of Neo-slavery once slavery was outlawed
Prison Labor Camps
Black people are sent to prison for drug offenses 10x the rate of white people
Prison Boom
practice of New York police department in which officers stopped, questioned, and frisked thousands of pedestrians annually (1968-2013)
Stop & Frisk
this practice disproportionately targeted young Black men; disproportionate targeting practices sent more Black men to prison and kept them in the prison system
Stop & Frisk
purposeful efforts to use racial animus/tensions as leverage to gain material wealth, political power, or heightened social standing
Strategic Racism
In 2011, more Black men were stopped than the number of young Black men living in NYC
Stop & Frisk
“the purposeful manipulation of racial ideas forms the poisonous core of racism” (Haney Lopez 2014)
Strategic Racism
Justifications included “inappropriate iffseason attire” and “furtive movements”–very subjective and easily defendsible
Stop & Frisk
induced the Prison Boom and the racial disparities that came with it
War on Drugs
NYPD institutionalized quotas; officers with low numbers of stops, summonses and arrests were subjet to disciplinary actions. this encouraged officers to stop people for the sake of stopping people and meeting their quotas
Stop & Frisk
between 1981 and 2001, drug control spending increased from $2 billion to over $18 billion
War on Drugs
Concept developed because Haney Lopez found that convict leasing could not be explained common misunderstandings of racism:
- convict leasing didn’t emerge out of spite/hatred
- it wasn’t simply the continuation of past structures of exploitation
- must be _____
Strategic Racism
police officers paroled heavier in poor, non-White communities (despite decline in drug use during the 1980s and higher rate of White drug use than Black drug use)
War on Drugs
a LOT of people in jail because the Anti Drug Abuse Act set required jail time
War on Drugs
In 1990s and 2000s, drug-related prison admissions in Milwaulee went up dramatically. Most of the overall increase was due to ann increase in admission of Black men.
War on Drugs
set up the standard of “reasonable suspicion” and that officers must point out specific and “articulable” facts that justify suspicion (innapropriate offseaon attire, “furtive movements”
Terry v. Ohio (1968)
The Batson Rule dudn’t solve the problem it was designed to address
Batson v. Kentucky (1986)
created the Batson Rule, which states that a prosecutor’s use of a peremptory challenge in a criminal case (the dismissal of jurors for doing so) may not be used to exclude jurrors based soley on their race
Batson v. Kentucky (1986)
This is the justification upon which Stop-and-Frisk was created
Terry v. Ohio (1968)
created the precedent that nationalities are protected classes under the 14th amendment and having all-white juries in criminal cases for people of color us not a “jury of their peers”
Hernandez v. Texas (1954)
Brooker T. Washington’s famous speech, advocating for a compromise in which African Americans agree to not have full access to political power, but they should at least be provided with basic education
Atlanta Compromise
the sum of one’s knowledge of established and revered cultural material and practices (what you know)
Cultural Capital
knowing what kind of clothes to wear (what you know)
Cultural Capital
You get a good job becayse you know powerful people in the company (who you know)
Social Capital