In the 21 first Century, the United States still has an extremely large number of individuals in the penal system. To this day, the American country still contains the highest prison population rate in the world. Although mass incarceration rates are extremely high, decreases in this number have been made. Since the first time since the 1970s, the imprisoned population has declined about 3 percent. This small step seemingly exemplifies how a vast majority of individuals who becoming aware of these issues and performing actions to decrease these numbers. In the Chapter 13 of James Kilgore’s Understanding Mass Incarceration: A People's Guide to the Key Civil Rights Struggle of Our Time, he asserts how individuals who oppose mass incarceration …show more content…
Unfortnalety, insititulaized racism in these underprivileged communites can channel individuals of color into criminal activities. The effects of slavery still linger on, constructing systematic barriers that continue to plague many individuals of color. One cannot be punished harshly if one is seemingly a product of their environment. The final alternative is prison abolition. This measure is extremely straightforward; the idea is that mass incarceration is similar to slavery because it is an unjust and racist system. Abolitionist wish to end the prisons entirely, and instead, construct prison-industrial complex. Ultimately, this has to be my least favorite alternative because it automatically assumes that every individual in the prison system a person of color. In addition, I believe that individuals who commit severe crimes such as murder and rape should be placed under some sort of prison establishment. Overall, I really despise the present prison infrastructure. I hope that in the future, individuals will become enlightened about the issues of mass incarceration and continue to develop methods that can alleviate the high numbers of imprisoned
Land of the Unfree: Mass Incarceration and Its Unjust Effects on Those Subjected To It and American Taxpayers
Alexander (2010) suggests mass incarceration as a system of racialized social control that functions in the same way Jim Crow did. She describes how people that have been incarcer...
Mass Incarceration: The New Jim Crow is the direct consequence of the War on Drugs. That aims to reduce, prevent and eradicate drug use in America through punitive means. The effect of the war on drug policies returned de jure discrimination, denied African Americans justice and undermined the rule of law by altering the criminal justice system in ways that deprive African Americans civil rights and citizenship. In the “New Jim Crow” Alexandra argues that the effects of the drug war policies are not unattended consequences but coordinated by designed to deny African Americans opportunity to gain wealth, be excluded from gaining employment and exercise civil rights through mass incarceration and felony conviction. The war on drugs not only changes the structure of the criminal justice system, it also changes the ways that police officers, prosecutors and judges do their jobs.
Currently in the United States, we have 2.3 million people incarcerated in prison and jail, and an additional 7 million people either on probation or parole, thus, making us the most incarcerated nation on the planet. In comparison, we have a bigger prison population than those of China and Brazil combined. Clearly, this has become a tremendous problem and has affected many people, generally poorer people of color. The people as described, usually come from a childhood of abuse, gang violence, poverty, and early victimization by law enforcement in impoverished neighborhoods. I believe the issue isn’t the people within the community, but rather the system the governors that community. I believe our corrupt justice system
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.
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
It is not a coincidence that the majority of people in the correctional system are black, but there is the hope that through the knowledge and respect of one another those grievous acts that divide people into skin color, race, ethnicity, and religion can find a common ground. Common ground as in laws that everyone can agree on, not just what the majority decrees as being justice. There isn’t any government that can achieve this because of the seemingly infinite amount of strife in the world which causes people to become refugees and flee to strange countries. The only way that I can perceive the extinction of unconscious racism is the development of science which can prevent hardships. A common enemy has historically been known to bring people together, whether that enemy is a shortage of food or lack of resources, the most basic needs of freedom and liberty bind all men together with a goal in a positive direction.
Prisoner reform is a crucial issue today which has yet to reach its full impact on the minds and lives of voters. However, with every passing year the importance of this topic becomes more evident. Since the eighties, every passing year has brought more pressure for harsher and longer imprisonment and more streamlined mandatory sentencing rules. The earliest prisons were local township jails that were seen as housing facilities for those waiting on trial. When someone was convicted they were either executed, banished or tortured. This has not only resulted in an exploding prison population, but also in a drastic increase in the number of prisoners released into communities. Additionally, the push towards stronger measures has decreased educational opportunities in prisons and the availability of rehabilitation programs. This means that released prisoners are unable to reintegrate into their communities.
According to statistics since the early 1970’s there has been a 500% increase in the number of people being incarcerated with an average total of 2.2 million people behind bars. The increase in rate of people being incarcerated has also brought about an increasingly disproportionate racial composition. The jails and prisons have a high rate of African Americans incarcerated with an average of 900,000 out of the 2.2 million incarcerateed being African American. According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics 1 in 6 African American males has been incarcerated at some point in time as of the year 2001.
In the United States, the rate of incarceration has increased shockingly over the past few years. In 2008, it was said that one in 100 U.S. adults were behind bars, meaning more than 2.3 million people. Even more surprising than this high rate is the fact that African Americans have been disproportionately incarcerated, especially low-income and lowly educated blacks. This is racialized mass incarceration. There are a few reasons why racialized mass incarceration occurs and how it negatively affects poor black communities.
With the recent 2016 election, Hillary Clinton voiced her opinion on putting more money on ankle bracelets for low-level offenders as a solution to help reduce the bloated prison population. This solution, in theory, proposes the offenders to work, be with their loved ones, be able to be productive, and do their time without being in a prison (Shourd). According to James Kilgore, the author of Understanding Mass Incarceration, he agrees that being put in ankle bracelets is better than being put into prisons, but he responds again saying that it’s still not the answer. (qtd. In Shourd). Electronically monitoring has solved some of the problems that the solution set out for, but by solving those problems new ones appeared. By using ankle bracelets
The most problematic conclusion about Mass Incarceration, whatever the causes or practices, is that currently America has had the highest national prison rates in the world; furthermore, the rates of minorities (particularly African Americans) are extraordinarily disproportionate to the rates of incarcerated Caucasians. Despite the overall rise in incarceration rates since the 1980s, the crime rates have not been reduced as would be expected. Researchers, activists, and politicians alike are now taking a closer look at Mass Incarceration and how it affects society on a larger scale. The purpose of this paper is to examine the anatomy of Mass Incarceration for a better understanding of its importance as a dominant social issue and its ultimate relation to practice of social work. More specifically the populations affected by mass incarceration and the consequences implacable to social justice. The context of historical perspectives on mass incarceration will be analyzed as well as insight to the current social welfare policies on the
The United States has successfully done all the components of the,except for rehabilitation, one of the main reason our prisons have such large populations because of the high recidivism rate, many convicts that are released from prison tend to return to prison within the next one to five years. the number of prisoners is constantly increasing, its hard to make the numbers go down if they keep convicting the same people. Secondly, Mass incarceration has ruined the family structure, 3.2 percent of the population is under some form of correctional control. African Americans are mostly affected by mass incarceration. African Americans now constitute nearly 1 million of the total 2.3 million incarcerated population.
Thompson, Heather Anne. Why Mass Incarceration Matters: Rethinking Crisis, Decline, and Transformation in Postwar American History. The Journal of American History (2010) 97 (3): 703-734 doi:10.1093/jahist/97.3.703
Overcrowding in our state and federal jails today has become a big issue. Back in the 20th century, prison rates in the U.S were fairly low. During the years later due to economic and political factors, that rate began to rise. According to the Bureau of justice statistics, the amount of people in prison went from 139 per 100,000 inmates to 502 per 100,000 inmates from 1980 to 2009. That is nearly 261%. Over 2.1 million Americans are incarcerated and 7.2 million are either incarcerated or under parole. According to these statistics, the U.S has 25% of the world’s prisoners. (Rick Wilson pg.1) Our prison systems simply have too many people. To try and help fix this problem, there needs to be shorter sentences for smaller crimes. Based on the many people in jail at the moment, funding for prison has dropped tremendously.