Title: 40 Reasons Why Our Jails Are Full of Black and Poor People | HuffPost
Headings: 40 Reasons Why Our Jails Are Full of Black and Poor People
40 Reasons Why Our Jails Are Full of Black and Poor People
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Content: Despite the fact that Black and white people use marijuana at the same rates, the ACLU found a Black person is 3.7 times more likely to be arrested for possession of marijuana than a white person. The ACLU found that in some states Black people were six times more likely to be arrested for marijuana than whites. For all drug arrests between 1980 and 2000 the U.S. Black drug arrest rate rose dramatically from 6.5 to 29.1 per 1,000 persons; during the same period, the white drug arrest rate barely increased from 3.5 to 4.6 per 1,000 persons. Download
Eleven. Many people in jail and prison because the U.S. has much tougher drug laws and much longer sentences for drug offenses than most other countries. Drug offenders receive an average sentence of seven months in France, twelve months in England and 23 months in the U.S.
Twelve. The bail system penalizes poor people. Every day there are about 500,000 people are in jails, who are still presumed innocent and awaiting trial, just because they are too poor to pay money to get out on bail. Not too long ago, judges used to allow most people, even poor people to be free while they were awaiting trial but no more.