Argumentative Essay On Incarceration

Ever since the first prison opened in the United States in 1790, incarceration has been the center of the nations criminal justice system. Over this 200 year period many creative alternatives to incarceration have been tried, and many at a much lower cost than imprisonment. It wasn’t until the late 1980’s when our criminal justice systems across the country began experiencing a problem with overcrowding of facilities. This problem forced lawmakers to develop new options for sentencing criminal offenders.

Alexander, author of The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness, explained how our treatment of criminals has created a new racial caste system, and the only way to make change is by massive social change and Civil Rights movement. The criminal laws often focus on psychoactive drugs used by the minority populations. Minorities are disproportionately targeted, arrested, and punished for drug offenses. For instance, Black, Latino, Native American, and many Asian were portrayed as violent, traffickers of drugs and a danger to society. Surveillance was focused on communities of color, also immigrants, the unemployed, the undereducated, and the homeless, who continue to be the main targets of law enforcement efforts to fight the war on drugs. Although African Americans comprise only 12.2 percent of the population and 13 percent of drug users, they make up 38 percent of those arrested for drug offenses and 59 percent of those convicted of drug offenses causing critics to call the war on drugs the “New Jim Crow”(drug policy). The drug

As a legacy of the Civil Rights Movement, blatant racism is no longer viewed as acceptable social behavior. However, the absence of blatant individual racism cannot be equated to the absence of structural racial discrimination. With the Thirteenth Amendment preserving slavery as punishment in the prison system, criminality is being manipulated by the media to be associated with race. We see the full effects of the overrepresentation with War on Drugs legislation, which are policies that categorized drug use as a crime instead of health issue pushed forward by the Reagan administration. The master narrative of the criminality painted the legislation as colorblind, or nondiscriminatory, policies that will benefit all citizens and created

After getting the public support for his campaign, America saw an unprecedented rise in its incarceration rate, particularly among African Americans. The “ War on Drugs ” has had a disparate impact on the black community even though blacks and whites use drugs at approximately the same levels. This is achieved through a myriad of formal and informal practices. African-Americans are targeted and prosecuted at a much higher rate even though they are not statistically any likelier to abuse or sell drugs than the white population.

The United States features a prison population that is more than quadruple the highest prison population in Western Europe (Pettit, 2004). In the 1980s, U.S. legislation issued a number of new drug laws with stiffer penalties that ranged from drug possession to drug trafficking. Many of those charged with drug crimes saw longer prison sentences and less judicial leniency when facing trial. The War on Drugs has furthered the boom in prison population even though violent crime has continued to decrease steadily. Many urban areas in the U.S. have a majority black population. With crime tendencies high in these areas, drugs are also prevalent. This means that a greater percentage of those in prison are going to be black because law

“The United States has 5 percent of the world’s population, but 25 percent of its prisoners. The cost of housing all those inmates: $80 billion a year” (Whitaker, 2016). The United States (U.S.) has been fighting an unwinnable war for the past thirty years. The U.S. government and the War on Drugs has disproportionately impacted African Americans and the prison population has quadrupled over the last thirty years. The U.S Government polices of the war on drugs have contributed to the mass incarceration of African American males due to sentencing and race disparities, over-policing, and anti-drug policies.

Mass incarceration became a public policy issue in the United States in the 2000s. Now in 2016, there are still many questions about America’s incarceration rate, 698 prisoners per 100,000 people, which is only surpassed by Seychelle’s at 868 for every 100,000. They concern the phenomenon’s beginning, purpose, development, and essentially resolution. In her book published this year, assistant professor of history and African and African-American studies at Harvard Elizabeth Hinton challenges popular belief that mass incarceration originated from Reagan’s War on Drugs. Mass incarceration’s function as a modern racial caste system is discussed in a 2010 book by Michelle Alexander, an associate professor of law at Ohio State University, civil

The “War on Drugs” established that the impact of incarceration would be used as a weapon to combat the illegal drug problem in this country. Unfortunately, this war against drugs has fallen disproportionately on black Americans. “Blacks constitute 62.6% of all drug offenders admitted to state prisons in 1996, whereas whites constituted 36.7%. The drug offender admissions rate for black men ranges from 60 to an astonishing 1,146 per 100,000 black men. In contrast, the white rate begins at 6 and rises no higher than 139 per 100,000 white men. Drug offenses accounted for nearly two out of five of all black admissions to state prisons (Human Rights Watch, 2000).” The disproportionate rates at which black drug offenders are sent to prison originate in racially disproportionate rates of arrest.

America has a major problem with overcrowding in its prisons, and action needs to be taken. Since 1970, the inmate population in the United States has increased over 700%, far greater than the general population as a whole. This has led to declining quality of life within the prison system including 8th Amendment violations and it represents a needless drain on state finances. There is simply no value in keeping non-violent convicts in the prison system, sometimes for years. The costs are high, and there is very little benefit to America. The justice system needs to be overhauled to relieve the massive crowding in US prisons.

Minor crimes or offenses should not be treated with the same punishment as murder or rape. Yet, drug users and immigrants find themselves sharing the same establishments as serial killers and rapists. The private prison system lost their cause of rehabilitation, and instead focuses on the profit gained from each prisoner. To the heads of these for profit prisons, each prisoner is another dollar sign added to their pockets, and not a person. These economic issues may seem like a quick fix by establishing quality control, but the economic issue is not only affecting the private prison owners, but is negatively affecting the prisoners

Some prisoners are plagued with Post Incarceration Syndrome, a combination of psychological problems. These problems are institutionalized and antisocial personality traits, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder,

The U.S. prison system is a highly effective saftey system with over 1700 prisoner acress the U.S. and about 2.2 million prisoners that were incarecated in just 2013 alone. Thus may sound excessive but as Edmnd Burke once said "All that is neccessary for the triumph of evil is that good people do nothing." The U.S. prison system definitely doesnt do nothing. Prisons across the nation not only serve as places where evil is fairly and adequately punished but, as a place for rehabilitation, and example of an efficacious crime control strategy and detterent to future offenders. Prison systems in the U.S. are very sccessful in keeping our society as safe as possible.

“The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude.” – US Constitution (Amendment XV). The constitution states that every United States citizen should have the right to vote so why shouldn’t felons get the right to vote after they have served their time and finished their punishment. One of the main goals of prisons and jails is rehabilitation so if felons are given the right to vote then they would get a chance to start over and become a better member of society.

“It’s a stark fact that the United States has less than five percent of the world’s population, yet we have almost twenty-five percent of the world’s total prison population,” Hillary Clinton said this April 29th of 2015 at Columbia University pertaining to Criminal Justice. The United States as a nation contains approximately 2.2 million prisoners which is approximately as much as the next two highest countries which are China and Russia, China has 1.6 million and Russia is around 660 thousand prisoners. Another mind blowing fact is that 71 percent of released prisoners are convicted of a serious crime within three years of their release and approximately 68 percent return for at least a day. Therefore, rehabilitation of prisoners should be

As many would guess living in prison has a huge effect on people’s lives.  While living in prison an inmate is likely to run into people who have committed a variety of crimes ranging from drug deals to murder.  However, in a special case an unemployed couple named Stan and Charmaine enter prison on a volunteer basis.   Stan and Charmaine currently live a rough life where they are both unemployed and have a very limited income.  One of the results of being unemployed is they are homeless and live out of an old beat up Honda.  The couple then volunteers to go to prison every other month in order to have a more secure home as well as amenities such as better food and comfort.  In prison there is a fine line drawn between unemployment and incarceration.  With unemployed people more likely to end up being incarcerated.  Even though when incarcerated the inmates give up amenities such as freedom they also receive somewhat of a better life with being able to live in a stable place with all of life's necessities provided to them for no charge.