Jim Crow laws coming back

Dear editor:

America is number one in a lot of things, from Olympic medals to our annual GDP. But America is also number one in some categories we should not be too proud of, such as school shootings, debt (credit card, mortgage, student loan, and government), teenage pregnancy rate and incarcerated individuals.

Per 100,000 people there are 751 behind bars (equivalent to the Soviet Union's record), whereas other developed counties such as Germany or Japan have much lower numbers of incarcerated "criminals," 88 and 63 per 100,000 respectively, and the world median is 125.

Most of the prison population is made up of Hispanics (20 percent) and Blacks (40 percent) who are incarcerated for crimes at a much higher rate than whites.

The war on drugs has a lot to do with this. For example, marijuana use is similar for all three races, but Blacks are almost four times more likely to get arrested for possession of marijuana. In Idaho it's almost three times as likely and in Elmore county this number drops to only 1.2 times as likely.

Possession of cocaine, considered a drug used mostly by Caucasians, requires 500 grams for a felony, whereas crack, considered a drug used often by African-Americans, requires only 28 grams for a felony. Before 2010, only 5 grams of crack resulted in a felony charge.

Once a person is labeled with a felony many of those rights fought for in the Civil Rights era are gone. The right to vote, run for office or serve jury duty. Felonies give employers the right to reject job applications, licensing organizations to revoke licenses or permits and removal from public housing.

If someone commits a crime, they deserve to be punished, but what we are seeing today is that minorities, especially Blacks, are targeted and profiled at an unfair rate. Then African-Americans are incarcerated at record levels and then tossed into a world similar to the Jim Crow era. One in eight Black males lives in such a world.

There is a reason we have the highest recidivism rate in the world. We need more justice in our "justice" system.

Marcel Tatum