Category Archives: Prison Industrial Complex

Why Is the N.Y.P.D. After Me?

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By Nicholas K. Peart

Published: December 17, 2011
WHEN I was 14, my mother told me not to panic if a police officer stopped me. And she cautioned me to carry ID and never run away from the police or I could be shot. In the nine years since my mother gave me this advice, I have had numerous occasions to consider her wisdom.

One evening in August of 2006, I was celebrating my 18th birthday with my cousin and a friend. We were staying at my sister’s house on 96th Street and Amsterdam Avenue in Manhattan and decided to walk to a nearby place and get some burgers. It was closed so we sat on benches in the median strip that runs down the middle of Broadway. We were talking, watching the night go by, enjoying the evening when suddenly, and out of nowhere, squad cars surrounded us. A policeman yelled from the window, “Get on the ground!”

Read Complete Story: Here

Young Black Males & Prison Incarceration

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black boy in prison

According to Boothe (2007), African American male children have little chance of succeeding in life. For example, the chances of an African American male becoming:

an NFL player is 1 in 1,250

an NBA player is 1 in 4,600

a Ph.D. in engineering, mathematics, or the physical sciences is 1 in 2,000

a doctor is 1 in 548

a lawyer is 1 in 195

a teacher is 1 in 53

On the other hand, the same African-American boy probability for prison incarceration is 1 in 13 before dying; they have a 1 in 3 chance of being a felon; a 1 in 7 chance of never graduating from high school; a 1 in 6 chance of graduating from college; and a 50:50 chance of becoming a drug abuser…

Black boy adolescents are 46 times more likely to be sent to a juvenile detention facility than Caucasian adolescents.

The dismal picture of African-American boys seems lost or at least not important enough for a social movement. The author feels that the acceptance of Black boys being an endangered species influence indifference by society and the Black community.

As always, countless Black pontificates fill national news shows articulating black boys’ demise, however, the announcements of a social movement remains a moot point. When will the Black community stop the generational destruction of Black boys?

Subsequently, we watch in calmness as they drop out of school and join the ‘Prison Armed Forces.’ Sadly, being locked up has become dramatized with MSNBC running countless loops of prison life. The show as well as others like it seems to say incarceration isn’t all that bad, YIKES!!! Black boys are in a bad way in America, unschooled, truant, and a valuable commodity to the private prison industry.

In short, the Black church as usual is incapable of enacting any real transformation in the hood. Preachers and pastors run the game of ‘faith & hope’ to Black mothers whose boys are locked away on extensive bits in prisons across the nation. Where are the social programs to address the exodus of Black boys on the slave ships called ‘Mass Incarceration’?

The Invisible Dragon

References:

Boothe, D. (2007). Why are so many black men in prison?: Full Surface Publishing.
Boykin,