Effects Of Mass Imprisonment In Prison

The rate of imprisonment within the United States continues to rise. Garland (2001) states that “current government estimates suggest that, in the course of the present year, the total number of inmates incarcerated in America’s jails and prisons will exceed 2,000,000 for the first time ever” (p. 5). Some scholars have labeled this mass imprisonment. Garland further explains this term by stating that “mass imprisonment implies a rate of imprisonment and a size of prison population that is markedly above the historical and comparative norm for societies of this type” (p. 5). Essentially, this means that the high rate of imprisonment does not make sense. Another issue when discussing mass imprisonment is the fact that it seems like a certain

544) terms “spatial justice” (as cited in Cullen 1995, p. 62). This means that African Americans may be living in areas where they are more likely to come into contact with some form of criminal justice repercussions. Mauer (2001) explains that the underprivileged African-American neighborhoods not only receive the most punishments, but they are also segregated from every aspect of society (p. 15). They are confined to their own neighborhoods, away from others. Cullen (1965) explains that well-off whites live in their own more secure areas, while deprived minorities live in areas where they do not feel safe from the criminal acts committed between the same racial groups (p. 62). This process keeps the racial groups away from each other, thus possibly growing the fear or disgust that groups may have for one another. This is how racism continues within the United

13). However, there have been theories such as Radbruch’s theory, that have suggested that the main purpose of the development of punishment in the criminal justice system was to oppress these same individuals, who at the time of its development were known as slaves (Sellin 1967, p. 25). The issue is that time and reform has not seemed to change anything. Mauer (2001) explains that through mandatory sentencing and other reforms, such as ‘three strikes’ laws and federal guidelines, offenders are dehumanized (p. 17). Through these guidelines, it does not matter if an offender is a special case; they are all given the same amount of time in the penal system. The concern here is that impoverished African-Americans seem to be targeted through these legal procedures. This can be seen through the large racial disparity in the composition of the corrections system, yielding the possible explanation that society still degrades minorities. Mauer (2001) states that “it is difficult to quantify to what extent this process of dehumanization is tied in with perceptions of race and ethnicity, but the data on prison populations and the political imagery of recent years strongly suggest that these issues are intimately connected” (p. 18). Sellin (1967) suggests that the bottom line is that the notions of Radbruch’s