Latinx Men in The Prison Industrial Complex
“A change in policy is needed, as retrenchment of the social welfare state and the hardening of criminal justice policies have worked to limit the life chances of males from communities of color. In the current political, economic, and social context, young males of color also need guidance and support if they are going to successfully navigate America’s unsteady racial terrain.”
​
“The attempts to criminalize immigrants, whether they have entered the United States permissibly or not, and by paralleling them to the terrorists who attacked the US, fuels policy that created a profit-making ‘Immigration Industrial Complex’ centered around detention and deportation.”
​
Being Latinx comes with the many assumptions that these men are “illegal immigrants” who “do not belong to this country.” With the assumption that these men and their ethnicity are “foreign” to America, this sentiment only fuels the stereotyping and prejudice they face. Discrimination based on ethnic/racial identity is similar to that of Black African American men, but these experiences differ based on where the stem of these stereotypes originate from.
“Others argued that, with the wars on crime and drugs, police adopted more aggressive tactics when patrolling black and Latino communities. 100 such practices—powered by a racialized fear of crime—exacerbated racial disparities in arrests, jailing, and imprisonment.”
​
With the context of the War on Drugs that brought the prejudices these ethnic communities face to all new heights, the unique experience of Latinx men within the American prison system more often than not revolves around their citizenship status. The question of citizenship, again, because Latinx men are often viewed as “foreign” in the US, often leads to many false imprisonments and convictions within Latinx communities.
“Most Latinx people in the U.S. are U.S. citizens, but in some cases, they face similar challenges to wrongfully convicted Latinx immigrants. In several cases, U.S. citizens have been wrongfully convicted of entering the country illegally or committing another immigration violation, and were exonerated only after proving that they had been citizens all along.”
​
The Innocence Project is an organization that focuses on and works towards combatting wrongful convictions by proving the innocence of these wrongly convicted individuals. Since the project started in 1992, they have been able to overturn many of these convictions, and as part of their work, share the stories of these innocent people.
​
In one such case, Clemente Aguirre, who came to America to flee violence in Honduras, was working in a Florida restaurant in the summer of 2004. On June 17th, after spending an evening with friends, Aguirre stopped by his neighbor’s house on the way home only to find that 47-year-old Cheryl Williams and 68-year-old Carol Bareis had been attacked by an unknown assailant. Aguirre attempted to revive Williams, but it was too late, and soon after, he discovered Bareis’ lifeless body in the next room.
​
Given his immigration status, Aguirre feared deportation if he were to call the police about his neighbor’s situation, so he did not report the crime. Later, however, as William’s daughter’s boyfriend came to the home to pick up some belongings, he immediately called the police upon discovering the women’s bodies. Aguirre was eventually charged with both of their murders. He was convicted. He spent 14 years in prison. He served a decade on death row. In 2018 with newly discovered evidence including DNA, Aguirre was exonerated of his wrongful conviction.
“Innocent Latinx people like Mr. Aguirre are uniquely vulnerable to wrongful conviction because of concerns over immigration status, according to a recent study published in the UCLA Law Review. Innocent Latinx immigrants are more vulnerable to pleading guilty to crimes they didn’t commit under threat of deportation and law enforcement officers have used witnesses’ immigration statuses to manipulate their testimony.”
​
Aguirre’s story demonstrates many social intricacies at play regarding the American prison system. While Aguirre himself was concerned over his own immigration status, oftentimes Latinx men have family members whose immigration status is of concern, which also leads to many false confessions as to avoid the deportation of family members. Not only that, but in some cases, language barriers can also lead to false convictions under manipulations of testimonies. Citizenship status aside, English proficiency is often a challenge when it comes to Latinx people facing convictions. In America, there is no right to a translator, and oftentimes, translators are not trained professionals but rather someone who just so happens to speak the language to some extent. However, this leads to misinterpretations and false confessions.
“Though not all Latinx people face language barriers and not all people who face language barriers are Latinx, nearly 30% of the U.S. Hispanic population does not consider itself proficient in English, according to a Pew Research poll.”
​
​
As presented, there are a variety of factors that play a crucial part in shaping the experiences of Latinx men within the Prison Industrial Complex. Aguirre’s story is just one example of the many wrongly convicted men who have fallen victim to the prejudiced American prison system that more often than not targets them. Latinx men are targeted primarily because of their ethnicity, out of prejudices that allow them to be perceived as “foreign” to America. This “otherness” that has been established simply emphasizes the size of the target on their backs. Not only that, but the American justice system is not designed to support these men. Latinx men are constantly threatened based on citizenship, whether that is for themselves or others in their family. More often than not, these men are convicted because their testimonies get lost in translation, allowing them to be exploited by these institutional practices. As a result, the only people who benefit from the mass influx of such prisoners are those in charge of running these big business prisons.
“By exploiting millions of inmates, a handful of profiteers have gained fruitfully, to the degree that ‘The appearance of the prison millionaire [has] marked a turning point in American penology. Never before had it been possible in this country to become rich by incarcerating other people. Now it seems commonplace’ (Hallinan, 2001: 174).”
​
As previously mentioned, it is no surprise that men of color are among the most targeted demographics within the incarceration system. However, in comparison to Black men, Latinx men face a different experience within the American incarceration system because of their ethnicities.