Flickr/Dennis Grice. Some rights reserved.It is disgraceful enough that America – a supposed beacon of liberty – is by far the world’s largest incarcerator. But adding outrage to injury, our massive criminal punishment system is infected at all points by racial injustice. The difference by which our country treats people of colour in the enforcement of our criminal laws renders the ring of the maxim “equal justice under law” – the inscription above the entrance to the United States Supreme Court – hollow, leaving it at best a lofty aspiration that remains elusive throughout the streets and courts of this country.
It is no surprise, in many ways, as such racial unfairness is the latest stop on our long road of racist policies, from slavery to forced labour to Jim Crow laws. But like those dark chapters in our history, we will look back with the same shame at mass incarceration.
