Plea Bargaining and the For Profit Prison Industrial Complex
Any discussion of systemic racism in America would be incomplete without mentioning how race impacts the criminal justice system. It should not be surprising to anyone to hear that the black population is overrepresented in the what Angela Davis has termed the prison industrial complex (Lentin, 2020). 37% of America’s prison population is black, yet blacks are only 12% of the total US population (Bureau of Justice Statistics, 2014). In fact, the for-profit private prison industry uses the labor of the prisoners by farming it out to American corporations, who pay pennies on the dollar for prison labor (Pelaez, 2019). And this is just part of the problem. Clearly there is a conflict of interest in the criminal justice system if there is a for-profit industry that profits from incarcerations. But why do blacks make up such a large percentage of the prison population? Most people will say it is because they are the ones committing all the crime. But that answer neglects to consider how the criminal justice system actually works and the role that plea bargaining plays in the system.

Defense attorneys are expensive, and everyone knows that one gets what one pays for. Public defenders are not going to provide the best defense for the accused. They might provide some, but the reality of the situation is that most people who are charged accept a plea bargain because they are pressured into it by the office of the prosecutor; they are threatened with a stiffer sentence if they fight the charges in court and lose; and they are generally made to feel afraid for their future if they don’t accept the “generous” deal being offered them if they would just plead guilty. Plus, they do not understand the system or their right to due process. In fact, the pressure that gets put on them to plead guilty and forego a trial is a process that tramples all over their Constitutional right...…This is a complete diversion from the real problem. The problem is that policing is being used in the wrong way. Community policing is a much better way to serve communities with law and order. It allows communities to get to know the police officers and the police officers to get to know the community. Policing should not be simply a system in which a distress call is sent out and the police show up to arrest someone.

The criminal justice system needs to change the way it polices, the way it prosecutes and the way the prison complex profits off incarceration. The black community is not served in any of this, but the emphasis on plea bargaining is one that especially needs more focus because without it, the entire system would likely collapse. Police could not go on arresting blacks if the system could not handle the cases. The laws would have to change or the culture would have to change. The system should be focusing on…