New Prison Study: Race and Racism Placed at Center of Why U.S. Imprisons So Many of Its Citizens

AlterNet / By Liliana Segura

Two criminologists have concluded, in a new study investigating public attitudes behind harsh sentencing, that the warehousing of African Americans and other minorities is no accident. Rather, "racial resentments are inextricably entwined in public punitiveness." In other words, racism and the rise of "tough on crime" policies go hand in hand.

James Unnever of the University of South Florida-Sarasota and Francis Cullen of the University of Cincinnati acknowledge the "lengthy roster" of previous studies on race and the U.S. prison system; yet theirs manages to contribute something crucial to the current debate: "… [G]iven the large body of research that documents a substantive association between punitiveness and racial animus," they write, "it is somewhat disconcerting that theories of the mass-incarceration movement do not place race and racism at the center of their explanation for why the United States imprisons so many of its citizens."

Liliana Segura Continues

Curtis Flowers: The Unbelievable Still Takes Place in Mississippi Justice (or Lack Thereof)

On the morning of July 16, 1996, four people were brutally murdered at a furniture store in the small Mississippi town of Winona. By 11:00 am everybody had heard the news: Bertha Tardy, the proprietor of Tardy ’s Furniture, had been killed execution style. Carmen Rigby, Tardy’s longtime bookkeeper, had suffered the same fate, as had hired hands, Bobo Stewart and Robert Golden. Golden was black, the other three victims were white. Six months later, Curtis Flowers, a young black Winona resident who had worked three days for Bertha Tardy, was arrested and charged with the brutal murder of four innocent people.

Thirteen years, $300,000 and five trials later, Mr. Flowers remains behind bars and the state has been unable to obtain a final conviction.

Learn more about what is happening in this current Mississippi case. Visit Friends of Justice.
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