Asian American Prisoners

Who are Asian Americans?

Asian Americans in the United States include Asian Indians (which embraces the countries of [Page 45]Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Nepal, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, and Tibet), Cambodians, Chinese, Filipinos, Indonesians, Japanese, Koreans, Pacific Islanders (combined from the Polynesian Islands, such as Guam, Hawaii, Samoa, Tahiti, and Tonga), Thai, and Vietnamese. Even though there are enormous differences between these groups in their histories, cultures, and beliefs, the criminal justice system combined these populations to be treated as one ethnic group. Overall, Asian Americans account for 4% of the population in the United States.

History

Since the 1800s, Asians have emigrated to the United States from their separate countries in large clusters. All groups suffered various forms of discrimination. In 1882, for example, the U.S. government denied Chinese immigrants access to the United States through the Chinese Exclusion Act, only abolishing the Act in 1943 when the two nations became allies in World War II. Further laws were established to prohibit Asians from marrying individuals from another ethnicity, restricting the amount of land they could own, and assessing additional state and local taxes against them. Finally, the U.S. government responded to the bombing of Pearl Harbor by forcing Japanese Americans to leave their homes and businesses for internment camps for the duration of World War II.

Crime

Asian Americans involved in illegal activities are often part of organized crime and gangs. The illegal activities of these groups include gambling, prostitution, extortion, money laundering, counterfeiting, and robberies. Crimes in Asian American communities are believed to be underreported for a variety of reasons. Recent immigrants may be reluctant to report crimes based on their own experiences in their homeland because of corruption in their homeland's criminal justice system, while victims may fear retribution for reporting the crime. The police in many cities, particularly those with large Asian populations such as New York City and San Francisco, have instituted a range of outreach programs to try to combat these problems. Most agencies, however, are hampered by language problems, inadequate community relations, and limited resources.

Prison Statistics

There have always been very few Asian American prisoners in the United States. For example, in 1880, of the 12,681 foreign-born prisoners only 526 were Chinese. In the past 20 years, Asian Americans continuously have had the least number of inmates in both federal and state prisons in the United States of all the minority groups. The Sourcebook of Criminal Justice Statistics in 1980 reported that of the more than 300,000 prisoners in the United States, only 699 prisoners were Asian Americans. In 1985, this number had more than doubled to reach 1,575. By 1990, there were 464 Asian Americans in the federal prisons and 2,016 in the state prisons out of a total of more than 700,000 prisoners in the United States. While in 1995 of the more than 1 million prisoners in the federal and state prisons in the United States, Asian Americans accounted for around 6,000 prisoners. Finally, the 2000 Sourcebook of Criminal Justice Statistics reported that more than 8,000 prisoners in the federal and state prisons were Asian Americans, yet the total number of prisoners in the United States reached more than 2 million.

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