Perspective of Craig Haney and Talitha LeFlouria in Prison Overcrowding

Criminal justice corrections
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‘Criminal justice reform won’t work until it focuses on Black women’
Systemic racism and inequality in America have been severe problems attributed to the mass incarceration of people of color. In his quest to implement racial equality agenda, President Biden unveiled executive actions to address this problem by ending private prisons. In the article, “Criminal Justice won’t work until it focuses on black women,” Talitha L. LeFlouria discusses the history and plight of Black women in the American prison system over the years. While the article has outlined several reasons why Black women should be part of the discussion in implementing criminal justice reforms, it fails to authoritatively back this argument with sufficient data.
LeFlouria (2021) discusses how mass incarceration affects Black women. Since 1865, Black women have faced high arrests, convictions, and imprisonment across the United States. The detention was primarily a way of punishing and denying these women fundamental rights. Consequently, this has resulted in 30 percent of the 13 percent population of Black women in America facing mass incarceration. The author outlines that the women have had to endure hard labor through convict leasing and the prison industrial complex, rape, harassment, and injuries. Black women have been ignored in the discussion of criminal justice reforms due to the overconcentration of incarceration of Black men and the recent focus on the opioid crisis affecting white women. She concludes for true justice to be achieved; Black women have to join in the discussion.
LeFlouria discusses a crucial topic as President Biden seeks to implement reforms in the Justice System. Looking at the injustices Black women have faced for more than 150 years in the American prison system could help provide the president with a diverse perspective on what criminal justice reforms should entail (LeFlouria, 2021, pp1). Unlike Black men, who are at the center of the justice reform discussion, women face distinct challenges such as “Dizzying work routines and are also expected to expend energy fighting off sexual predators and nursing wounds (LeFlouria, 2021, pp. 3).” However, LeFlouria’s article does not provide viable evidence or examples of the alternative reforms that will influence lawmaking and policing in justice reforms.
Leflouria’s article provides a detailed and conclusive picture of the plight of Black women in the American prison system. She begins her analysis one-fifty years after slave ownership was abolished, when women were overpoliced and over punished for being black, leading to 30 and 40% of them ending up in the prison system (LeFlouria, 2021, pp. 2). The hard labor from morning to evening they had to endure in the 1850s and the prison industrial complex system today explains a community facing punitive treatment and labor exploitation. With an overemphasis on Black men and the rise in the incarceration of white women, Black women have endured much suffering.
While the article accurately describes the plight of Black women in the prison system, it fails to ...