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Family is where many people call home however, mass incarceration tends to shatter that. Prisons have been overcrowding throughout the years. The article “Mass Incarceration: The Silence Of the Judges”, written by Rakoff states that out of two point two million prisoners eight hundred forty thousand males are African American, four hundred forty thousand males are hispanic and one hundred thousand are woman in whom which committed nonviolent offenses are in prison. People should not be put in prison for actions that are not serious as rape, robbery, murder etc. In order for prisons to be less crowded prisoners should be offered programs to help them rehabilitate, programs when they are out of jail, have shorter sentencing depending on crime …show more content…
David Simson from The Wire Creator had an interview on youtube with Barack Obama about The Drug War. In the video “A Conversation with President Obama and The Wire Creator David Simson” Barack Obama and David Simson had a conversation on how the rates on arrest for drug use has increased. David Simson also states that there has been less arrests for rape, robbery and murder. When the action seems to be less harmful to others those people can be punished without being sent to prison. People who commit unharmful crimes such as small burglary or drug possession should be put in house arrest probation or community service. On the other hand, people who commit higher harmful crimes such as murder, rape or robbery should be put in prison.
In the video “A Conversation with President Obama and The Wire Creator David Simson” we can relate back what the article “Mass Incarceration: The Silence of The Judge” states about the rates increasing for arrests on drugs.. Rakoff declares, “Most of the increase in imprisonment has been for nonviolent offenses, such as drug possession.” (Rakoff 590) in which David Simson also declared in the video “The numbers of drug arrest and the incarceration for drug arrest went up.”(Video) According to David Simson these people were in prison for about three months due to the amount of space prison
When people are in prison, they cannot support their families. Inmates also can’t spend time with their family and their sons or daughters might turn towards crime. When families are split up, the offender’s family is less likely to succeed in the community. This might be because the remaining parent might not be able to handle all the pressure. The remaining parent might also not have a good job that can support the family so they will be in poverty.
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.
Starting in 1970s, there has been an upward adjustment to sentencing making punishment more punitive and sentencing guidelines more strict. Martinson's (1974) meta-analyzies reviewed over 200 studies and concluded that nothing works in terms of rehabilitating prisoners. Rehabilitating efforts were discontinued. The War on Drugs campaign in 1970s incarcerated thousands of non-violent drug offenders into the system. In 1865, 34.3% of prison population were imprisoned for drug violation. By 1995, the percentage grew to 59.9% (figure 4.1, 104). Legislation policies like the Third Strikes laws of 1994 have further the severity of sentencing. The shift from rehabilitation to human warehouse marks the end of an era of trying to reform individuals and the beginnings of locking inmates without preparation of their release. Along with the reform in the 1970s, prosecutors are given more discretion at the expense of judges. Prosecutors are often pressure to be tough on crime by the socie...
The war on drugs, a war made invisible to society, but one of the most destructive wars in our nation today.Politician’s call it a successful proposition for the nation, following the motto- go hard or go home,Politician's Increasing the sentencing of drug related crimes by the hour, Law enforcements cleaning up the streets.Locking up every drug offender that cross their paths. Politicians and law enforcements making the war on drugs a number one priority for our nation's wealth and safety.Politicians believing these method will teach the drug offenders a lesson and stop corrupting our streets. Government official’s call it a successful investment for our country.More prisons systems mean more employment opportunities for our government employees. Its a win win situation ,employment increase and drug offenders are off the streets. you would think?
In recent decades, violent crimes in the United States of America have been on a steady decline, however, the number of people in the United States under some form of correctional control is reaching towering heights and reaching record proportions. In the last thirty years, the incarceration rates in the United States has skyrocketed; the numbers roughly quadrupled from around five hundred thousand to more than 2 million people. (NAACP)In a speech on criminal justice at Columbia University, Hillary Clinton notes that, “It’s a stark fact that the United States has less than five percent of the world’s population, yet we have almost 25 percent of the world’s total prison population. The numbers today are much higher than they were 30, 40
It is easy to turn a blind I when there is no direct personal experience. Mass incarceration is an issue that influences other issues within the correctional system. The more people under correctional supervision means, the more individuals who can potentially be sexually victimized or placed in solitary confinement. Both are issues within the correctional system. Moreover, studies have shown that sexual victimization and solitary confinement have adverse side effects on inmates. If any of these variables are going to change for the better, then policy needs to change. Those in society, especially those with power who can affect policy in the penal system need to see these issues as a major problem. Some of the proposed solutions to reduce the incarceration rate and not new ideas, but a change in approach. Heroux (2011), suggested possible policy solutions to reduce the mass incarceration. Some of these solutions are earlier release, a change in mandatory minimums, transfer to non-institutions facilities, the diversion from institutional facilities, and doing away with mandatory minimum laws. This could be the next step towards reducing mass
In todays society the United States has the highest incarceration rate in the world. This high incarceration rate is due to the growing phenomena known as mass incarceration. This phenomenon has led to massive increase of people being placed in prison and the amount of money being used for these prisons. The book, Race to Incarcerate by Marc Mauer, focuses on mass incarceration as our default social policy because of the weak welfare state in the U.S. In the book Mauer discusses the causes and the problems with this policy.
The overpopulation in the prison system in America has been an on going problem in the United States for the past two decades. Not only does it effect the American people who are also the tax payers to fund all of the convicts in prisons and jails, but it also effects the prisoners themselves. Family members of the prisoners also come into effect. Overpopulation in prison cause a horrible chain reaction that causes nothing but suffering and problems for a whole bunch people. Yet through all the problems that lye with the overpopulation in prisons, there are some solutions to fix this ongoing huge problem in America.
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
Families are often forced to choose between supporting an incarcerated loved one and meeting basic needs for their families and themselves. For many families the loss of income from the relative who goes to jail or prison results in deep poverty and can last for generations to come. Alongside physical separation, the
The first reason, why the U.S imprisonment rates are too high, because of harsher drug-related crime sentences. In the early 1980's, lots of cocaine was shipped to the U.S. What happened, is that drug dealers extracted a powder from the leaves of the Coca plant, and turned it into a smoke-able powder. This resulted into a massive “Crack Epidemic” which led to the crackdown of drug traffickers. This also led to harsher drug-related crime sentences. What the U.S should do, is to lower the sentencing standards for drug related crimes. Still, drug-related crime offenders still need ti be sentenced. The U.S should lower the maximum sentence for drug-related crimes, because according to www.drugwarfacts.org, “On Dec. 31, 2012, there were 196,574 sentenced prisoners under federal jurisdiction. Of these 99,426 were serving time for drug offenses.” That means that half the people in prison in 2012, were there because of drug offenses, and a good way to make that number lower is to lower the maximum sentence for drug-related crimes. That is the first reason why the U.S imprisonment is too high.
It is undeniable that mass incarceration devastates families, and disproportionately affects those which are poor. When examining the crimes that bring individuals into the prison system, it is clear that there is often a pre-existing pattern of hardship, addiction, or mental illness in offenders’ lives. The children of the incarcerated are then victimized by the removal of those who care for them and a system which plants more obstacles than imaginable on the path to responsible rehabilitation. Sometimes, those returned to the community are “worse off” after a period of confinement than when they entered. For county jails, the problem of cost and recidivism are exacerbated by budgetary constraints and various state mandates. Due to the inability of incarceration to satisfy long-term criminal justice objectives and the very high expenditures associated with the sanction, policy makers at various levels of government have sought to identify appropriate alternatives(Luna-Firebaugh, 2003, p.51-66).
There is a plethora of data within the last 10-15 years that repeatedly show family, friends, and entire communities or neighborhoods being drastically affected by the consequences of mass incarceration as well. The data focus primarily on the effects on the partners, children, families, friends, and caregivers of those incarcerated; particularly the economic, emotional, and personal relationships between incarcerated individuals and those the data also
Drug violators are a major cause of extreme overcrowding in US prisons. In 1992, 59,000 inmates were added to make a record setting 833,600 inmates nationwide (Rosenthal 1996). A high percentage of these prisoners were serving time because of drug related incidents.... ... middle of paper ... ...
In Illicit Drugs and Crime, Bruce L. Benson and David W. Rasmussen (Professors of Economics, Florida State University, and Research Fellows, the Independent Institute), reply with a resounding no. Not only has the drug war failed to reduce violent and property crime but, by shifting criminal justice resources (the police, courts, prisons, probation officers, etc.) away from directly fighting such crime, the drug war has put citizens’ lives and property at greater risk, Benson and Rasmussen contend.