The Iowa Justice System
If someone was to ask you what state has the highest ratio of blacks to whites in prison? What states would come to mind? Probably Mississippi, Alabama, Texas, definitely one of the southern states would be the choice of most if not all of us. Well if you choose one of these states your answer would be wrong. So what state does lead the nation with the highest ratio of blacks to whites in prison? The answer is Iowa, yes Iowa. A national study conducted by the Washington bases Sentencing Project ranks Iowa No 1 in the nation in the ratio of blacks to whites in prison. Iowa incarcerates blacks at a rate of 13.6 times that for whites. This is twice that of the national average.
This is no easy task especially considering that blacks make up only 2.3% of the population of Iowa, and that Iowa is not a high crime state. This news is no surprise to black leaders in Iowa who say Iowa has been among the national leaders in the incarceration of black men for years. A 1999 investigation done by the Des Moines Register found that 1 in 12 black men in Iowa were either in prison, on parole or probation. These figures were much higher then most other states at the time. Then Gov Tom Vilsack set up a committee to study the problem, but since that time little to nothing has changed as evidence of this recent study.
The Iowa justice system is broken. There is no justifiable explanation as to why this could happen in this state. One of the four black lawmakers in Iowa Abdul-Samad said of racism “What’s dangerous is that we don’t think we as a state have an issue with that,” but obviously there is a problem in the state of Iowa. So when you think of Iowa don’t just think of corn and farmers, think injustice.
Tags: Iowa Justice