After visiting the courthouse, Baltimore writer wonders "Can we get free?"
Doestoevsky astutely noted that the “degree of civilization in a society can be judged by entering its prisons.”
I thought about that recently as I entered into the Clarence M. Mitchell, Jr. Courthouse, Circuit Court for Baltimore City.
My mother, an employee of the courts, imparted upon me a legitimate fear and skepticism of the judicial system; I remember, as a youth, visiting her at work, and witnessing the seemingly interminable line of young black men, handcuffed and demoralized, being led into and, out of, various courtrooms. It rubbed me wrong, it frightened me; I couldn’t allow that to be my fate.
That fear confronted me again as I sat alone in the back of the courtroom, observing a case at the request of my mother. The room was full of young black men awaiting their probable fate, their faces expressing either extreme bravado or heavy trepidation. How did they arrive here? I thought to myself. More importantly, where are they heading?
Where are they heading? It is a question that stings the skull, incessantly drilling at the back of the mind. It was in this courtroom that numerous men born no earlier than 1989 were being sentenced to eight to ten years within the criminal justice system. Where does one go after that? What life does one lead?
This is a troubling question that the African American community must face all too frequently. According to a study produced by the Pew Center on the States- and supported by statistics compiled by the U.S. Justice Department- one in 15 black adults is behind bars. This figure is one in 9 for black men between the ages of 20 and 34. This compares very unfavorably to the rate for the general adult population, which sits at one in every 99.1.
I wondered how many of the young men sentenced this day were acutely aware of the probabilities, how many simply acknowledged these statistics as their unavoidable fate.
But I also wondered how this occurs with such knowing indifference. What does it say of us when we allow so many to cross this path? After all, the United States has more of its population under the thumb of the criminal justice system than any other developed, democratic nation. Perhaps the degree of civilization in a society is better judged by the number of people we lead into our prisons.
– Baltimore writer R. Darryl Foxworth is a Baltimore Brew contributor, blogs at the r. darrylblog and has written for The Baltimore Sun, The Baltimore City Paper, Urbanite and many other publications.