Page 49 - Middle Georgia State University - Knighted 2019
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complex and the convict-lease system rose from economic and social changes and necessity
(167). Additionally, Raza argues that “the legalized practice of racial profiling…can be seen
as giving rise to new forms of ‘Black Codes’ targeting people of color” (167). Lichtenstein
also acknowledges the rebirth of penal practices from the Reconstruction era. He further
elaborates that racial disparity within prisons, a lack of rehabilitation services, and increased
sentences for petty drug offenses, particularly for minorities, is evidence of this resurgence
(“Flocatex” 114).
It is evident through these comparisons that the justice system we have in the United
States today is a system rooted in racism; it is a system that seeks to profit from the
exploitation of minorities convicted of petty crimes, and one that uses non-violent offenders
to solve economic problems. We live within the confines of a system that uses mass
imprisonment as a means to disenfranchise minorities to maintain white political power in a
demographically diverse society.
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