A persistent issue in the criminal justice system in the United States is mass incarceration.
The country puts its citizens in multiple confinement systems, including federal prisons, state prisons, local jails, psychiatric hospitals, youth detention centers, and all other correctional facilities, at a higher rate than any other country.
According to the American Civil Liberties Union, mass incarceration disproportionately affects people of color and fails to make the country safer.
Many of the incarcerated lack the financial resources to obtain legal assistance, leading to excessive sentences or wrongful convictions, to begin with.
For example, in 2010, the police arrested more than 1,000 children for prostitution when in reality, they were victims.
The story of Cyontia Brown as she struggled to overturn her convictions of first-degree murder and aggravated robbery from inside a maximum-security prison became such a harsh reminder of the extent of unfairness that the U.S. criminal justice system could inflict upon a child.
Cyontia was 16 when she shot Johnny Allen, using a gun she had obtained from her pimp for protection. She was tried as an adult and sentenced to life.
10 /10 Kut Throat The Pimp
In her 2019 memoir “Free Cyntoia: My Search for Redemption in the American Prison System,” she goes into detail about the circumstances leading up to her incarceration, such as being raised by an alcoholic mother, childhood spent in and out of juvenile detention center, and years of drug abuse.
As if life had not been challenging enough for her when Cyontia was only 16, she met with a 24-year-old Garion McGlothen, also known as Kut Throat, who sold her out to have sex with men.
If she didn’t come back with cash, he would beat and rape her.
9 /10 Daily Dose Of Cocaine
For a time, Cyontia and Kut Throat lived together from one motel to another around Nashville. In their world, not a day went by without snorting cocaine.
The combination of drugs and brainwashing turned Cyontia into a victim of sex trafficking.
The pimp liked to remind her that some people were born whores, and she was one, so the best thing she could do in her life was learning to be a good whore.
He also gave her a gun for protection if she needed one for self-defense, which she eventually did.