Why is Jamal Jackson in jail?

"AGE 19, no permanent address." That's how NBC 15 News referred to Jamal Jackson in the articles reporting his multiple arrests in Dane County, Wis.--before going on to inform us that "Jamal is no stranger to crime."

In August 2010, Jamal was arrested for allegedly stealing two smart phones from the Apple store in the West Towne Mall shopping center in Madison. He was given 60 days in jail and three years probation.

When he was released in December, Jamal was rejected from the Huber Center, Madison's work-release program and halfway house for people transitioning back into a hopeless job market after a stretch in jail. Jamal's father is currently in jail as well, and Jamal found himself without a place to live.

Daphne Jackson, Jamal's mother and a member of Campaign to End the Death Penalty in Chicago, has been trying to get the district attorney to allow Jamal to return to Chicago, where he would have a place to live and a base of financial support. But according to his probation, he cannot leave Madison.

Now, Daphne, in cooperation with Madison activists, is petitioning the Dane County Department of Corrections to transfer Jamal's probation--even as Madison police are currently holding Jamal as a suspect in home burglaries.

JAMAL'S STORY is not uncommon, especially in Wisconsin, a place that has been referred to as "the worst state in America to be Black," based on the record of the criminal injustice system.

On the evening of June 2, 2011, after reporting to his parole officer for his regular meeting, Jamal tried to stay the night at his stepmother's house, but no one was home. He called his mother in Chicago while walking to a nearby corner store. On his way, around 3 a.m., Jamal was approached by police, who were combing a nearby neighborhood in response to a report of a home burglary. At the time, the police said they just "wanted to talk." Though Jamal was frisked and asked to sit in the squad car, he was told that he was not at that moment being detained.

When police asked Jamal if they could search him, he complied. According to Jamal, who has been studying the laws surrounding his arrest, the police search was illegal in scope. Prior to being told he was being detained, and the reasons for it, the police only have the authority to do a pat down for weapons. During this illegal search, the police found a cell phone and, according to police reports, other electrical devices.

At this point, Jamal's story and the one told by the police in their reports diverge significantly. (It is also worth noting that reports submitted by different police officers differ as well.) The police claim that the cell phone, which Jamal insists he found laying on the ground, was stolen from a nearby vehicle.

There is no mention of the supposed origins of the other items, though they are also being held as evidence. In addition, a police dog was walked through the house where the break-in took place. According to police, the dog picked up a scent that led it directly to where police encountered Jamal. In one police report--and an NBC 15 news report--it was stated that Jamal was found hiding behind an electrical box. But another police report claims Jamal was seen walking down the street when he was stopped.

Though two laptop computers missing from the burgled residence have not been found, the police report states, "Jamal Jackson did enter someone's residence without permission." There has been no other physical connection between Jamal and the break-ins. As far as the cell phone, in Jamal's words: "Who are they going to believe, the cops or a criminal?"

Police would also later claim that Jamal had resisted arrest. However, had that been the case, he would have been restrained and would not have had his hands free to call his mother from inside the squad car. After that conversation, when her son was being searched and detained, Daphne didn't hear from him until the next morning. When they spoke again, he was in custody--although not officially charged for a full 10 days while he sat in jail.

Jamal has been in the Dane County jail ever since. He has faced two hearings: a pre-trial conference with the district attorney's office on July 26 to consider the new charges of theft, and another hearing on August 9 with the Department of Corrections to determine whether to revoke his parole on account of these new charges and for missing an earlier hearing in related to an alleged probation violation.

Jamal is refusing to accept a plea bargain. For maintaining his innocence, Jamal's first public defender has dropped the case. His hearing has now been pushed back to early September.

In addition to being held in solitary for the simplest rule infractions, police have been interrogating Jamal about his phone calls with his mother and taunting him--they say things would be tougher for him if she comes to Madison for his hearing. A guard in the jail "has it in for me," Jamal says, and harasses him while he's in solitary, repeatedly waking him up at odd hours of the night and staring at him through the cell window.

Jamal's experience is one that has been repeated millions of times over across the country over the last 30 years as U.S. prison populations have skyrocketed. In Dane County, Black men are more than 20 times more likely to see jail time for a conviction than whites. And, according to a Justice Policy Institute report in 2007, Black men in Dane County are 97 times more likely to be incarcerated for drug crimes, the second-highest rate in the nation.

The state of Wisconsin is one of seven states with a Black incarceration rate at least 10 times the national average, and Dane County has the highest rate of Black incarceration in the state. According to a 2009 study by the Dane County Task Force on Racial Disparities in the Criminal Justice System, 47 percent of Black men in Dane County between the ages of 25-29 were either in jail, on under court-ordered supervision.

Considering the astounding levels of racial discrimination in the criminal justice system, and the countless other injustices carried out in this country with impunity, Jamal's case raises larger questions about who gets punished and who does the punishing. Given the above statistics, if Jamal were white, chances are he would already be home.