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Racism in the criminal justice system
Psychological effects on people in prison
Racism in the criminal justice system
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The United States has been known world-wide for entertainment surrounding the police, judiciary, and incarceration systems. These shows and movies are filled with violence - and at the end, the “bad guys” (criminals) always lose to the “good guys” (law enforcement). But this poses the question: should criminals be treated badly due to their offenses? It is common sense that when one breaks the law, they should be punished for it. However, do the crimes committed take away the humanity of the convict? Prisoners are still citizens of the United States and therefore have rights. America’s Incarceration System continues to fail to meet the needs and rights of prisoners due to issues such as overcrowding, lack of health care, discrimination, and sexual assault.
Almost all prisons face the mass problem of rape. Approximately 15.7% of inmates are raped in federal prisons. The percentage is raised in juvenile delinquent centers to 20%. Little has been done by government or prison wards to stop rapists inside of prisons. Attorney General Holder recently put extreme limitations on reports of prison rape. Annually, there are 200,000 reported victims of prison rape. However, experts and researches believe there
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are far more victims that do not speak up out of fear. If victims speak about their rape, they could be easily killed by the prisoner who assaulted them or their “prison family”. In prison, rape is used as a tool to control and manipulate others. It puts fear in the victims and power over them to their assailants. According to Rich, “The Bureau of Justice Statistics have proven that more than half of rape in prisons are committed by prison staff” (2). In the last 20 years, the number of victims of prison rape exceeded 1 million in America alone. Men and women alike are prone to prison rape and it affects their mentality the same way. In 2003, Congress created the “Prison Rape Elimination Act” (qtd. in Rich 2), which reported that data found shows the violation of prisoner’s basic rights in the American Constitution along with international guidelines of “decency and humanity”(2). The “war on drugs” has been an important part of the job for most police officers.
In the media the “war on drugs” is depicted as extremely dangerous and full of foreign cartels. But, this isn’t necessarily the case. Almost half of U.S. prisoners are convicted for nonviolent drug-related offenses. These crimes come with the longest sentences for nonviolent offenses. Instead of persecuting large cartels or dangerous drug rings, the police are arresting petty drug dealers, who are usually men of color. Latino and African-American men are These long sentences are uncalled for, while also being a detriment to the incarceration system. The longer the nonviolent offenders are there and the more the police continue their “war on drugs”, the more overcrowded the prisons
get.
The United States has a larger percent of its population incarcerated than any other country. America is responsible for a quarter of the world’s inmates, and its incarceration rate is growing exponentially. The expense generated by these overcrowded prisons cost the country a substantial amount of money every year. While people are incarcerated for a number of reasons, the country’s prisons are focused on punishment rather than reform, and the result is a misguided system that fails to rehabilitate criminals or discourage crime. The ineffectiveness of the United States’ criminal justice system is caused by mass incarceration of non-violent offenders, racial profiling, and a high rate of recidivism.
We live in a society today filled with crime and fear. We are told not to go out after a certain hour, always move in groups, and even at times advised to carry a weapon on ourselves. There is only one thing that gives us piece of mind in this new and frightening world we live in: the American penal system. We are taught when growing up to believe that all of the bad people in the world are locked up, far out of sight and that we are out of reach of their dangerous grasp. Furthermore, the murderers and rapists we watch on television, we believe once are caught are to be forgotten and never worried about again. We wish on them the most horrible fates and to rot in the caged institution they are forced to call their new home. But, where do we draw the line of cruelty to those who are some of the cruelest people in our country? And what happens when one of this most strict and strongest institution our nation has breaks down? What do we do when this piece of mind, the one thing that lets us sleep at night, suddenly disappears? This is exactly what happened during and in the after effects of the Attica prison riot of 1971. The riot created an incredibly immense shift and change not only in the conditions of prisons, but also in the security we feel as American citizens both in our penal system and American government. The Attica prison riot brought about a much-needed prison reform in terms of safety and conditions for inmates, which was necessary regardless of the social backlash it created and is still felt today.
Most black Americans are under the control of the criminal justice today whether in parole or probation or whether in jail or prison. Accomplishments of the civil rights association have been challenged by mass incarceration of the African Americans in fighting drugs in the country. Although the Jim Crow laws are not so common, many African Americans are still arrested for very minor crimes. They remain disfranchised and marginalized and trapped by criminal justice that has named them felons and refuted them their rights to be free of lawful employment and discrimination and also education and other public benefits that other citizens enjoy. There is exists discernment in voting rights, employment, education and housing when it comes to privileges. In the, ‘the new Jim crow’ mass incarceration has been described to serve the same function as the post civil war Jim crow laws and pre civil war slavery. (Michelle 16) This essay would defend Michelle Alexander’s argument that mass incarcerations represent the ‘new Jim crow.’
The United States of America has the world’s highest incarceration rates, for several reasons. The United States of America doesn’t necessarily possess any unique strict laws in comparison to other countries of the world, yet we still have the highest incarceration rate in the world. More federal level and state level prisons are built in order to control and hold more prisoners because most are reaching its full capacity. The United States of America’s “crime rates” increased about 40 years ago when there became a new focus in the areas of crime. The President of the United States of America at the time Richard Nixon used the term “a war on drugs” in order to shed light on public health due to substance abuse. Initially, these policies created
For years now, incarceration has been known to be the center of the nation’s Criminal Justice Center. It’s no secret that over time, the criminal justice center began experiencing problems with facilities being overcrowded, worldwide, which ended up with them having to make alternative decisions to incarceration that prevent violence and strengthen communities. These new options went in to plan to be help better develop sentencing criminal offenders.
In fact, one of the most leading violence in the prison setting is sexual victimization. It involves different behaviors from sexually abusive contact to nonconsensual sexual assault. These assaults present bigger issues within the prison such as being exposed to sexually transmitted diseases like HIV, causing the inmate to retaliate, depression and suicidal gestures. (Wolf, N, 2006) In 2011, a random sample of not less than 10% of all federal, state prisons, county prisons, and municipal prisons in America was drawn. At the end of the annual sample, 8,763 allegations of sexual victimization were reported by the Bureau of Justice Statistics. (Roberts, N., 2014) As stated, this only included 10% percent of the prison excluding the other 90 % of prisons in America. In 2009, 7,855 allegations were filed and in 2010, 8,404 with 51 percent involving nonconsensual sex acts or abusive contact amongst inmates. The other 49% involved prison staff that resulted in sexual misconduct and sexual harassment. In 2012, the Department of Justice estimated that about 1 in 10 inmates were sexually assaulted by officers with high expectation that it would only continue to increase. (Roberts, N.,
Today, half of state prisoners are serving time for nonviolent crimes. Over half of federal prisoners are serving time for drug crimes. Mass incarceration seems to be extremely expensive and a waste of money. It is believed to be a massive failure. Increased punishments and jailing have been declining in effectiveness for more than thirty years. Violent crime rates fell by more than fifty percent between 1991 and 2013, while property crime declined by forty-six percent, according to FBI statistics. Yet between 1990 and 2009, the prison population in the U.S. more than doubled, jumping from 771,243 to over 1.6 million (Nadia Prupis, 2015). While jailing may have at first had a positive result on the crime rate, it has reached a point of being less and less worth all the effort. Income growth and an aging population each had a greater effect on the decline in national crime rates than jailing. Mass incarceration and tough-on-crime policies have had huge social and money-related consequences--from its eighty billion dollars per-year price tag to its many societal costs, including an increased risk of recidivism due to barbarous conditions in prison and a lack of after-release reintegration opportunities. The government needs to rethink their strategy and their policies that are bad
"Too many Americans go to too many prisons for far too long, and for no good law-enforcement reason … Although incarceration has a role to play in our justice system, widespread incarceration at the federal, state and local levels is both ineffective and unsustainable. . . We need to ensure that incarceration is used to punish, deter and rehabilitate – not merely to convict, warehouse and forget"(Holder). Former Attorney General Eric Holder does not dispute that prisons play an important role in the justice system. He believes that along with punishing the inmate’s prisons should provide them with rehabilitation. With the already overpopulated prison system across the US there should be alternative for lesser nonviolent offences.
According to the Oxford Index, “whether called mass incarceration, mass imprisonment, the prison boom, or hyper incarceration, this phenomenon refers to the current American experiment in incarceration, which is defined by comparatively and historically extreme rates of imprisonment and by the concentration of imprisonment among young, African American men living in neighborhoods of concentrated disadvantage.” It should be noted that there is much ambiguity in the scholarly definition of the newly controversial social welfare issue as well as a specific determination in regards to the causes and consequences to American society. While some pro arguments cry act as a crime prevention technique, especially in the scope of the “war on drugs’.
It is said that prison should be used for more serious crimes such as rape, assault, homicide and robbery (David, 2006). Because the U.S. Prison is used heavily for punishment and prevention of crime, correctional systems in the U.S. tend to be overcrowded (David, 2006). Even though prisons in the U.S. Are used for privies on of crime it doesn 't work. In a 2002 federal study, 67% of inmates that
It is very difficult to prevent sexual violence outside the prison and jail area, nevertheless, imagine the issue inside the prison and jail area. There are people who will think the inmates deserve it and that they should not be helped since they are prisoners. Sexual violence has been going on for centuries and it is not a new issue. It is not until the Prison Rape Elimination Act of 2003 that requires the Bureau of Justice Statistics to develop new national data collections on the incidence and prevalence of sexual violence within correctional facilities. The BJS completed the third annual national survey of administrative records in adult correctional facilities between January 1 and June 30, 2007 that provides an understanding of what officials know, based on the number of reported allegations, and the outcomes of follow-up investigations. The 2006 results were compared with those from 2004 and 2005 to assess trends in sexual violence for the first time since the Act was passed.
Every civilization in history has had rules, and citizens who break them. To this day governments struggle to figure out the best way to deal with their criminals in ways that help both society and those that commit the crimes. Imprisonment has historically been the popular solution. However, there are many instances in which people are sent to prison that would be better served for community service, rehab, or some other form of punishment. Prison affects more than just the prisoner; the families, friends, employers, and communities of the incarcerated also pay a price. Prison as a punishment has its pros and cons; although it may be necessary for some, it can be harmful for those who would be better suited for alternative means of punishment.
All over America, crime is on the rise. Every day, every minute, and even every second someone will commit a crime. Now, I invite you to consider that a crime is taking place as you read this paper. "The fraction of the population in the State and Federal prison has increased in every single year for the last 34 years and the rate for imprisonment today is now five times higher than in 1972"(Russell, 2009). Considering that rate along crime is a serious act. These crimes range from robbery, rape, kidnapping, identity theft, abuse, trafficking, assault, and murder. Crime is a major social problem in the United States. While the correctional system was designed to protect society from offenders it also serves two specific functions. First it can serve as a tool for punishing the offender. This involves making the offender pay for his/her crime while serving time in a correctional facility. On the other hand it can serve as a place to rehabilitate the offender as preparation to be successful as they renter society. The U.S correctional system is a quite controversial subject that leads to questions such as how does our correctional system punish offenders? How does our correctional system rehabilitate offenders? Which method is more effective in reducing crime punishment or rehabilitation? Our correctional system has several ways to punish and rehabilitate offenders.
Crime is something that will be around for many years; it is not something that will just disappear from our society. The United States has a high crime rate and this crime rate ranges from drug possession to murder. The question is what crimes are redeemable for incarceration? There is not a definite line due to the fact each crime is different and the penalties can differ. However, when is comes to murder there should not be a second thought about the life sentence. Acts such as drug possession,however, should not be held to a life sentence.
As someone who has personally been victimized by the justice and prison system of Illinois, one of my life goals has been to fix it and make it equal and unprejudiced for every single citizen of our state. I have spent countless hours visiting penitentiaries in Illinois, and I was a critical part of the committee to close Tamms SuperMax Prison, where prisoners were locked up 23 hours per day and fed old food. I believe our prison system should be a place for rehabilitation and education, not a place to lock up people who have made mistakes. If there is no education involved in criminal’s lives, how are they supposed to change? That’s why I plan to take all of the low and medium security prisons and change them into secure higher education centers instead of the horrible places they are now.