by Chloe Goldberg

The United States incarcerates more people than any other country in the world. But the impact of this prison system, most notably on families of color, is much less vivid. “What If It Were You: Race, Class, and a Flawed Criminal Justice System,” a panel discussion organized by the African American Studies Department, explored this impact and how to reform criminal justice in America at Nyumburu Cultural Center on Sep. 19.

The panelists included retired federal Judge Alexander Williams Jr., entrepreneur and social justice advocate Steve Lopez and Jack Monell, an associate professor and program coordinator of justice studies at Winston Salem State University.

“What is the face of justice from your perspective? I will clearly say that justice simply is unfair, it’s broken,” said Williams, who served as a district court judge in Maryland for 20 years. 

Among the panelist’s chief concerns was how people of color are disproportionately represented in the prison system. Although African Americans account for 12 percent of the U.S. population, the Pew Research Center estimates that this group made up 33 percent of the prison population in 2017. 

Williams attributed the mass incarceration rates to a number of factors, including a breakdown in police and community relationships and a lack of “discretion” by law officers in sentencing.

Williams also blamed mandatory minimum sentencing laws, which force judges to hand down minimum prison sentences to those convicted of specific crimes. In Williams’ case, these crimes were often minor drug offenses. 

He felt “handicapped,” incarcerating more African American men for drug cases “simply because Congress had taken away the discretion for me to take into consideration people’s backgrounds,” Williams said. 

Steve Lopez and Jack Monell are keenly aware of the justice system’s discrepancies. They spent their teenage years imprisoned in New York, first at the notorious, now-closed Spofford Juvenile Center in the Bronx and later at a federal facility upstate.

Both men grew up in New York City in the 1980s at the height of the city’s crack epidemic. 

Monell discussed how the term “wilding” became popular at the time when referring to groups of young African American and Latino men. Although it was most commonly associated with gang violence, the act of “wilding” was often taken out of context and sensationalized by the media,  Monell said.

“I’m not going to say that there weren’t any instances where group violence didn’t occur, of course there was. But the term ‘wilding’ was used politically as a point to impose tougher criminal justice sanctions,” explained Monell.

Steve Lopez was arrested at 15 years old in connection with the infamous “Central Park Five” case that played out over the late 1980s and early 1990s in New York City. At the trial’s conclusion, five African American and Latino teenagers from Harlem were wrongfully convicted in connection with the rape and attempted murder of a white woman. Their arrest and imprisonment is the subject of director Ava DuVernay’s Netflix miniseries, “When They See Us.”

Lopez was one of ten teens prosecuted in the case, though not part of those who were later known as the Central Park Five. He pleaded guilty to a crime unrelated to the jogger case and was sentenced 1 ½  to 4 ½ years in prison.

Both Lopez and Monell, who had been arrested some time before the Central Park Five, recalled the violence they encountered while imprisoned. They were often attacked by correctional officers, they said, and their mental health was never considered.

“I was just scared…I cried everyday,” Monell said.

The panel agreed that any change in criminal justice would start with a system that treats all groups equally, instead of favoring white, wealthy Americans. 

Monell discussed the discrepancies in how law enforcement treats black people as compared to their white counterparts, evoking the death of Eric Garner at the hands of New York police.

“You got to follow the law, interpret the law, not create the law,” Lopez said.

Williams acknowledged the need to address certain factors that lead young people to crime, including a lack of education and working opportunities, and the importance of intervening to resolve these issues before the violence occurs. 

Monique Small, a senior criminal justice and criminology major, noted that there was much more to be done to reform the system, especially when it comes to disparities in race and prison sentencing.

“It’s definitely a work in progress,” said Small. “Under the current [presidential] administration, there is work being put in progress, but I don’t think we should stop here and be satisfied.” 

Senior broadcast journalism major with a certificate in African American studies, Dominique Janifer, is working within her journalism film capstone to bring more awareness to criminal justice reform. For Janifer, the issue is a personal one.

“Just being the race that I am, I see it amongst my peers, I see it amongst my family, and I see how this system affects us,” Janifer said. “Through my journalism, if I can kind of bring light to the situation and hopefully bring change to it, that’s what I want to do.”