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Monday, November 18, 2019
The Central Park Five
With an incarceration rate 5 times more than white Americans and making up 34% of the prison population, the criminal justice system has always been discriminatory towards African Americans. Such discrimination is ever so present in the case dubbed “The Central Park Jogger Case”. On April 19th, 1989, a group of around 30 African American and Latino kids traveled through Central Park in New York. That same night, eight attacks occurred towards other people in the park. Trisha Meili, a white woman jogging through the park, was suddenly assaulted and raped, which put her into a coma. 14 of the boys who traveled through the park were arrested for apparent connection to the slew of crimes that night. 5 boys, in particular, were accused of the rape. Their names were Kevin Richardson, Raymond Santana, Antron McCray, Yusef Salaam, and Korey Wise. 4 of the boys were present at Central Park that night, however, Korey Wise was only apprehended because he was with Yusef Salaam the next day. When the boys were first apprehended, they were illegally interrogated and physically abused as minors and were not aware of their rights. Later it was revealed that the NYPD told the boys that if they were to confess, they would be able to leave. This was a lie. After their trial, all five boys were sentenced to 6-13 years in prison. After 11 years, the actual perpetrator and convicted, named Matias Reyes confessed to the rape. Reyes claimed that he met Korey Wise in prison, which caused him to admit to his crime. With almost all of the five boys serving their sentences, they were released and charges were dropped. They ended up suing both the city and state of New York, which amassed them a total of around 45 million dollars. Their story was eventually picked up to be made into a movie by Ken Burns titled “The Central Park Five” in 2012, and docu-series on Netflix, titled “When They See Us” in 2019, which won two Emmies and re-ignited the controversy behind the false imprisonment of these five boys.
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This is an important topic that is ever prevalent in our culture. Prejudice is still a major issue even though everyone legally has equal rights in every regard. 40% of the U.S. prison population is made up of blacks, while they only make up about 13% of the entire population. Although through the history of this country, the inequality has definitely improved, there's still much more progress to be made.
ReplyDeletehttps://www.worldatlas.com/articles/incarceration-rates-by-race-ethnicity-and-gender-in-the-u-s.html
This was such a interesting and shocking blog to read. It is so horrifying to think that these boys were wrongfully incarcerated for a decade of their life, ripping away any chance at an education and a future. I wish I could say that this doesn't happen anymore and that society had made a lot of progress, but this just isn't true. In the past few months and weeks, the case of Rodney Reed, a black man convicted of the rape and murder of a woman, has made its way into the public eye. He served years in prison and despite mountains of evidence and witness testimonies, Reed was sentenced to death. Thankfully, just last week, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals granted him a stay of execution. It is so saddening to think that many men and women are wrongfully incarcerated just because of prejudices associated with their skin color. This blog was super informative, thank you for bringing this social issue to our attention!
ReplyDeletehttps://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/15/us/rodney-reed-texas-execution.html
This is a really crucial blog post that shows the inequity among races in the United States. That inequity was also present in the Great Depression. The unemployment rate in Harlem was 50% (compared to only around 25% for white Americans) and property ownership among African Americans dropped to only 5%. This left a legacy of inequity, both socially and economically, that continues to affect African Americans in the US to this day.
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ReplyDeleteThis was such an interesting blog to read, but it is appalling to see how such horrible injustices still occur within our society today. It is also shocking to notice the patterns of false convictions dating back from America's earlier history, to cases like that of the Scottsboro Boys during the 1930s, where nine boys were imprisoned upon being wrongfully convicted of the rape of two women. Even though three of the men in the Scottsboro Boys case were eventually exonerated as well as all of the Central Park Five, the continuity of these prejudiced attitudes towards people of color despite changes in legislation shows how major changes still need to be made in our country.
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