Haley 1

Greta Haley

Ms. Dorak

CHS English 102

10 April 2024

Guilty Until Proven Innocent

Slavery still exists in America. Officially, slavery has been abolished for 159 years, but it

is still around under a different name: prison. The 13th amendment states that "Neither slavery

nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been

duly convicted, shall exist within the United States.” Legally slavery is no more, but if a crime is

committed, that legality does not count. This has been targeted at people of color since slavery

was abolished, and it needs to end.

Originally, prisons were used to subjugate former slaves after the civil war. This then

developed into the war on drugs started by President Nixon in the 1970s. While he claimed that

the true war was to eliminate the drug issue that swept America, the real reason was to put

people of color behind bars. By the late 90s, prisons were overflowing with inmates to the point

that new prisons spread like wildfires. Constantly in the media, black people were the only ones

to blame and the majority of who were imprisoned (53%). This was so heavily reported that the

country viewed black people as criminals and assumed all were guilty.

While it may seem that America is now past the point of extreme racism, it is still a

prominent issue. According to Pew, by 2000, half of the prison population was black even

though they only took up 13% of the national population. This is not because all deserve to be

there, it is because the prison system is racially biased. In 2022, black people were four times as

likely to be jailed than white people.

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This is a travesty that needs to be stopped for good. For hundreds of years, there has been

a prejudice against people of color and it is far from ending. The prison system is just a part of

the circulation. After all of the laws put in place in the late 1900s, there has been a major decline

in the quality of the prison system. As a country, we need to reevaluate the criminal processes. In

America, every citizen has the right to a trial by an unbiased jury. Right now that is not the case.

After over a century of oppression, violence, and hardship, racism is far from ending, especially

in prisons. It is time we eliminate the assumption that everyone is guilty until proven innocent.