{"id":348,"date":"2018-12-11T10:50:40","date_gmt":"2018-12-11T16:50:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stories.kera.org\/price-of-prison\/?p=348"},"modified":"2018-12-12T13:32:28","modified_gmt":"2018-12-12T19:32:28","slug":"how-racism-invades-incarceration-process","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stories.kera.org\/price-of-prison\/2018\/12\/11\/how-racism-invades-incarceration-process\/","title":{"rendered":"Race And Incarceration: A Stark Reality"},"content":{"rendered":"

The statistics are startling: If you’re a black man in America, you’re five times as likely to go to state prison as a white man. Latinos and African Americans make up one-third of the U.S. population \u2014 but they make up two-thirds of the prison<\/em> population.<\/p>\n

Racism and criminal justice in America are deeply intertwined. That’s why you can’t talk about incarceration without talking about race.<\/p>\n

Christopher Scott knows that too well.<\/p>\n

In April 1997, Scott and Claude Simmons were driving through the wrong place at the wrong time. A man named Alfonso Aguilar had been murdered in Dallas.<\/p>\n

Police were everywhere and they had just a brief description of the suspects.<\/p>\n

“Two African-American men, one tall one short, dark complected with a low haircut. And I\u2019m like, what kind of description is that?” Scott says. “You described half of the African-American men in the world today if that’s the description you have.”<\/p>\n

\"Christopher<\/p>\n

Christopher Scott reads a letter from a Texas inmate while at the Hickory House BBQ on Riverfront Boulevard in Dallas. In his letter, the inmate insists to Scott that he is innocent. (Photo: Allison V. Smith)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

‘No way I’m going to get a fair trial’<\/h5>\n

 
\nScott and Simmons were arrested, convicted of murder and sentenced to life in prison. There was no DNA evidence \u2014 nothing to link them to the crime except, Scott says, the color of their skin.<\/p>\n

“I didn\u2019t think I was going to get a fair trial anyway, because at the end of the day, all 12 jury members was white,” he said. “The judge was white, the prosecutor was white and my attorney was white. … There’s no way I’m going to get a fair trial with a stack like that.”<\/p>\n

Twelve years later, both men were exonerated<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Since he got out of prison, Scott’s built a sort-of nonprofit detective agency<\/a> focused on exonerations. It was the subject of a PBS documentary: \u201cTrue Conviction<\/a>.”<\/p>\n

But before the national spotlight, his felt like just another black life thrown away.<\/p>\n

“The day I was going to court, I was in a holdover with seven other African-American young men. I was the oldest out of them and I was 25,” Scott said. “None of us got no less than 75 years.”<\/p>\n

If you’re a black man in America, you’re five times as likely to go to state prison as a white man, according to the Sentencing Project,<\/a> a national advocacy group.<\/p>\n

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