The injustices against Delaware’s black community must end

For the black community in Delaware there is not much “justice” in the criminal justice system.

Young blacks like myself, increasingly view “the system” as a mechanism to keep the black community from progressing. In effect, we see the laws of our land as instruments of our oppression.

Six out of 10 Delaware prison inmates are black, even though we are only 22 percent of the state population. That is a huge disparity with profound implications. Once a person enters the system they are branded for the future. It cuts their chances for economic advancement, to get a higher education, and to become a well-rounded citizen. Delaware’s criminal justice system does not allow for people to make a comeback, and it does not help them to become better than when they went in.

It is especially shameful when you consider how much is spent on the so-called “correctional system” in our state. We spend more on prisons than we do on higher education. If we spent more on education with more programs promoting positive outcomes for kids, showing them that there is something more than going to jail and getting into trouble with the police, things would be better.

The fact that the death penalty still exists in Delaware, and that Delaware’s death row is overwhelmingly populated by people of color is another glaring representation of the social injustices within our state. It tells the younger generations that slavery has not ended. It has become a symbol that the criminal justice system is stacked against us, especially when people consider the fact that year after year we are unable to even get a legislative vote up or down on repealing capital punishment, is unconscionable and un-American.

Delaware’s overwhelmingly white justice system has been fighting change because they benefit from maintaining the status quo. Their community is not being profiled, subjected to unnecessary force, or being targeted with the racist death penalty. Their brothers, their sisters, their uncles, their nephews, their mothers, and their fathers are not facing these injustices and having their lives wasted in prison. I fear that until and unless the broken justice system directly effects them and their families that nothing will ever change.

Adding to the persistent atmosphere of injustice is the reality that Delaware remains in the minority of states without a compensation statute for wrongful conviction and imprisonment. We also have no state law requiring recorded interrogations, as well as no law requiring the preservation of evidence. Ask yourself, who is being protected by this inexcusable inaction – police and prosecutors, or the public?

The obstructionists in Legislative Hall need to be voted out of office. We need new people elected, and the current people in power need to be voted out of office. Delaware is the First State and some hail it as “the great state.” But we cannot call ourselves that if we are still holding the black community down. We need new people with new ideas. Lawmaking needs to be about the people, not the people with the power, and this is what they fail to realize. It is high time for those we elect to actually represent our interests and to stop being responsive only to a select few in law enforcement who refuse to evolve on race relations.

These injustices have to be rectified, no matter how long it takes. Today’s power brokers can no longer just pat us on the back and tell us it is going to be okay. The Delaware Senate has already voted to repeal the death penalty. Allowing a vote on repeal in the House of Representatives would be a step in showing our state’s African-American community that black lives do matter.

Mary Batten is a graduating senior at Delaware State University, a political science major and a law studies minor, and serves as the president of College Democrats at DSU. Batten is a past-president of the Lower Sussex Branch of the NAACP.