Mass Incarceration In America Essay

Many people know that the United States Judicial System is, to put it nicely, flawed. Right now, the U.S holds five percent of the world’s population, and 2.3 million are in prison, making twenty five percent of the world’s prisoners. (13th). Forty percent of that 2.3 million are African American males as well. So how did it get to this point? Why have people let it get to this point? Is there any hope in fixing it? Some of these questions are harder to solve than another, but with the proper sources and information, all will be answered.

Let’s start with “How?”. How did the problem of mass incarceration in the U.S get so bad that it now holds twenty five percent of the worlds prison population? It’s supposed to be the land of the free is it not? The cause mass incarceration in the U.S can be traced back to long

way, and has been continuously built upon over time. The creation of the 13th amendment could be seen as one launching point. The 13th amendment was meant to make the act of slavery illegal, and give all men equal rights in the United States. But there was a loophole, and that was that “the 13th amendment applied to everyone but prisoners.” (13th) This lead to many now free African Americans being sent to jail for the smallest of things, simply to keep them oppressed. Violence against African Americans also increased after the movie “The Birth of a Nation” essentially kick started the rebirth of the KKK. After that, the Jim Crow laws where created, legalizing the segregation of colors in the U.S leading to even more African Americans being thrown in jail and completing the foundation.
Jumping forward to the 1970s, one will see the beginning of mass incarceration, the war on drugs, and the birth of the so called “Super Predator”.

During the 70’s, drugs such as marijuana and crack cocaine where seen as the greatest threat to the American people by the government. Marijuana was associated with “hippies” and crack with African Americans for some reason or another. This lead to more police searches, and people being tossed in jail for suspicion of possession. The “Super Predator” meanwhile came into play in the 80’s, and was the name given to children who committed crimes, and where supposed to be the signs of the end of America as the countries violence rating where supposed to only keep increasing as people became more and more violent. As one can see, it never got that bad. But that didn’t stop even more people, many of which were innocent, from being tossed into jail for the smallest of infractions for ridiculous sentences, most never getting a trial. And so here we are, continuously at war against crime only tossing more and more people into jail as the courts fill and trials are set for another time because there are too many

ahead.
Onto “Why?”. Why has it gotten so out of control? There are a few answers to this one. As stated earlier, this is an issue that was been continuously built upon, rarely slowing or dipping. For whatever reason, people don’t like people. When first discovered, African natives where seen as savage beast. This was still the case when they were brought to the new world to be used as little more than work animals. Once people realized that they were human too, walls where built and segregation became popular in the U.S. When people realized that they were people too they were labeled as “less” because of outdated ideas of the past. Now, with all of this and more stacked upon itself, people believe and embody it all, for it is all they know.
That is only one reason behind all the mayhem. Another that has been causing more trouble around the world besides what is discussed here is, what else, money. It turns out that people have figured out how make profit by imprisoning one another. The corporation that has monopolized the prison system the most is the Corrections Corporation of America, or CCA. They own nearly every prison that wasn’t built by the united states government as well as anyone they may buy from to run these prisons, effectively paying themselves. They are also payed by the U.S government for holding the criminals they arrest as well as having inmates create products with no pay or sentence reduction to be sold through ALEC, the American Legislative Exchange Council, who is partnered with just about any company one can think of.
And what can we do about all of this? It’s hard to say. To start, people need to see each other as equals. And while that is easy to say and for individuals to do for one another, it becomes more difficult as scale increases. More people would have to be educated, and ideas would have to be changed for different areas. On top of that, people can be stubborn, and if they don’t like what someone is saying, they won’t listen. Though, the same can be said about those that do support the change, and could help it along. As for corporations like the CCA and ALEC, many things could happen. While their practice can be seen as bad, if they are brought down, the shockwave could be devastating. They would have to be forced to change so that nothing worse could happen.
Nothing is perfect. Somethings are more flawed than others. Right now, the United States is home to twenty five percent of the worlds prison population, the largest of any single country. It got there due to people continuously building off of the horrible and outdated ideas of the past. It has lasted this long partly due to those ideas, and the corrupting effect of money, as people have found how to profit off of their fellow man’s suffering. The hard part is that there really isn’t a single way to go about it changing all of this. All that can really be done is to slowly try to chip away at it all.