Causes Of Mass Incarceration

When you think of mass incarceration it is imperative to look at the causes that affect minorities. One major thing that produced an increase in mass incarceration is the war on drugs. The war on drugs has impacted minorities in a major way. The war on drugs pushed policymakers to structure laws that were targeting underprivileged individual mainly minorities group. In addition, “The deinstitutionalisation of people with mental illnesses, and punitive sentencing policies such as three-strike laws (mandating life imprisonment for third offences of even relatively minor felonies) and mandatory minimum sentences for specific offence, even for some first0time offenders undoubtedly helped to both launch mass incarceration and keep it going” (Wilderman, & Wang, 2017, p. 1466). The war on drugs came during a time when crack cocaine became widespread in the black community. The popularity of crack cocaine became prevalent and accessible for many low-income individuals. Therefore, the high rate of crime that was induced by the crack epidemic forced many jobs to leave the communities. However, the structuring of laws put more emphasis on crack cocaine than powder cocaine. Not to mention, crack cocaine is prevalent in minority communities, and powder cocaine is present in the majority community. According to Martensen (2012), “Not only does this deny accessible goods and services to local residents, it likewise decreases the local job opportunities available for community members” (p. 214). Consequently, many African American called on the police to take action against the same people that looked just like them. Crutchfield, & Weeks (2015) states, “Some of the changes during this period of increased incarceration that disadvantaged people of color coming into the justice system were implemented with the help and support of African American political leadership” (p. 109). Therefore, lawmakers had to come up with a solution to address the issue. Law-makers created laws that put emphasis on arresting drug dealers for selling drugs. These small-time drug dealers were becoming a hazard to the community. However, the laws begin to cause harm to all that looked brown or black whether

In “How to Lock up Fewer People,” Marc Mauer and David Cole argue that the prison system in the US needs to be improved. America’s incarceration rate is far too high, and it must be reduced. To make their argument, they use many facts and shocking statistics. The authors state the problem at hand, recognize the obstacles, and push for reform.

Research Question No. 1 - Did Three Strikes You're Out contribute to the problem of mass incarceration and overcrowded jails and prisons?

Despite the large amount of criminals in prison, the crimes: murder, rape, and others has only “accounted for 10.6 percent of the total Crime Index” (Access Integrity Unit). The vast majority of criminals locked up are held on drug addiction or petty theft charges and not more serious offenses such as murder or assault. To put it simply, the cells that were built with taxpayers’ dollars holds 89.4 percent of criminals that are of no real threat to society. While the jail cells continue to fill up with occupants that has no business being behind bars, the general public will not feel any safer until new laws are passed to insure lesser offenders can get the help they so desperately need.

As understood by sociologists and scholars mass incarceration is a wide term that describes the increased rate of imprisonment in the prisons of United States for the past four decades. Accounting about 5% of the population of the world, United States recently have rapidly accommodated one-quarter of world prisoners. With the population statistics, the large numbers of prisoners leaves everyone with endless questions that need urgency in answering. Why the large number in the prisons? What are the causes of imprisonment? Are the constitutional laws in United States so harsh on minor faults that should have alternative ways of dealing with? Is justice really followed to the letter completely? And most importantly, who constitutes for these prisoners?

The author, Peter Enns, of “The Public’s Increasing Punitiveness and Its Influence on Mass Incarceration in the United States” is investigating whether the publics rising amounts punitiveness explains the significant rise in incarceration rates in the United States. Also, the author explores the importance of public influence and congressional hearing in relation to mass incarceration of individuals in the United States.

In recent decades, low-income Americans have been facing the consequences of living in a country whose criminal justice system is greatly influenced by skewed prosecution dynamics, and whose structural discrepancies continue to encourage the mass incarceration phenomenon that affects millions of individuals today. At rates higher than Russia and China, the U.S is incarcerating an entire portion of its population based on irrelevant criteria such as affluence and race. The harsh reality that both, poverty-stricken individuals and prison inmates face today, indicate a dire need for systematic change, and should encourage citizens to become informed members of society. As citizens have come together, and government officials become involved, many reforms have been introduced and passed which are conducive to a more restorative approach to justice.

America is experiencing a social phenomenon commonly referred to as mass incarceration, in which the rate of incarceration has increased by, “...has grown by 700 percent.(Goffman)” in the last 40 years. Mass incarceration is difficult to digest in totality due to its immense nature, nuance and variety of answers with the essence of ‘could be right’. In order to decipher the complex puzzle of mass incarceration, we must establish borders to manifest clarifying order in the overwhelming clutter of data. Theory will assist in demonstrating how the general and specific facts of issues, in this case mass incarceration, relate by essentially declaring the philosophical frame of the interpretation. In order to gain a nuanced understanding of America’s mass incarceration, three relatively distinct theories will be applied: conflict theory, structural functionalism and symbolic interactionism. These theories are categorized by two approaches of sociological investigation- macrosociological, which emphasizes the analysis of social systems and populations on a large scale, and micro sociological, which emphasizes the impact individuals have on social structure.

IT has been said that ‘The road to hell is paved with good intentions’. This maxim known in some form around the world has stood for a relatively simple meaning, that, regardless of the ‘intent’ behind an action, it is the result of that action that matters. Now, this can be applied directly to the problem that has plagued the United States of America since the mid-1970s, that of mass incarceration. Mass incarceration is the ‘high rate of incarceration in the United States… that is markedly above the historical and comparative norm for societies this type’(Western 28). This produces a ‘systematic imprisonment of whole groups of the population’(Western 29), specifically the black and brown communities found

America has been a land for the free since it became a dream place for people to come and have a successful life. In this case, America hasn’t been as grateful to people. They have more people in jail than any other country in the world and it’s still increasing. This main cause called mass incarceration brought America to the leading country that is incarcerating people at a high rate mainly sending those of color behind bars as said in web source A.C.L.U. This brings a lot of issues into a great nation such as the U.S.A. in a place where people should be proud to live in and represent. The topic of mass incarceration hasn’t been a major issue that politician’s really talk about. As well as the politician’s the people haven’t taken much actions to change it. Mass incarceration brings many troubles for America to deal with besides the other countless issues it has as a nation. The causes of mass incarceration are many, but the main important are overcrowded prisons, discrimination to criminals after jail, and imprisoning many people for long time periods based on small offenses that they have done. The causes of mass incarceration continue to affect the nation greatly as there are more people going behind bars at a high rate. Since the 1980’s there has been an increase of incarceration. It all started with the use of cocaine in the 1980’s that made “Policies that greatly excaberated racial disperities in incarceration rates… President Ronald Reagan officially announced the

For more than a decade, researchers across multiple disciplines have been issuing reports on the widespread societal and economic damage caused by America’s now-40-year experiment in locking up vast numbers of its citizens. (The Editorial Board)

The number of people incarcerated in America has steeply risen since the beginning of the War on Drugs. In 1980, about 300,000 individuals were in jail. (Alexander, 2010) In 2000, the number rose to over one million, and at the start of 2008, there were 2.3 million adults in prison in America (Pew Center on the States, 2008). These increases in the rate of incarceration are traceable to the War on Drugs (Nunn, 2001). “Convictions for drug offenses are the single most important cause of the explosion in incarceration in the United States (Alexander, 2010).” Drug offenses account for two thirds of the rise in the federal prison population between 1985 and 2000 (Nunn, 2001).

Before enrolling in this class, I was unaware of the topic that would be introduced to us. Many of my friends have taken this class in the past and recommended that I check each course to see which topic the class focuses on. Instead, I neglected their words of advice and dove into the class blind. Although I was unaware of the topic to be introduced, once I heard it being about mass incarceration, I was somewhat relieved. The class I took as a prerequisite to Writing 39C was Writing 37 and the topic was about racial conflict in the past. Upon hearing the topic in our first session, my mind instantly linked together the racial conflict I had prior knowledge about to the racial profiling that was an incentive to the mass incarceration. Connecting these two broadened my view on the "New Jim Crow" and allowed me insight on where I wanted to start my research and how to branch off from it.

The thought of incarceration might make the average person feel a bit uncomfortable. There is something inherently unnatural about humans being locked up and possibly abused in a cell; for the most part, we would prefer to simply not think about it. The root cause of this aversion is coincidentally the root cause of the need for prison itself. As human beings, every single one of us has an inherent dignity that is never meant to be taken away. When a criminal strips a person of their dignity through burglary or assault, we put the criminal in prison. Sequentially, when a criminal is stripped of their dignity in prison by being treated as an animal, it still does not sit right with us. The sole purpose of incarceration is to protect the members of society; our legal system has the responsibility to protect us from those who threaten our dignity and freedom by removing them from society and giving them the opportunity to heal enough to either re-enter society or die an honorable death behind bars because every person has an inherent dignity as a human being.

America, the home of the brave and land of the free. The national anthem states this and the media attempts to portray it to the fullest. The term mass incarceration describes the increasing rate of imprisonment in the United States of America. The media coverage of mass incarceration differs, some argue that this term is simply an exaggerated theory, while others believe mass incarceration has become embedded in our society as a repeat of historical injustices. Dorothy E Roberts, social justice advocate and American scholar, wrote an article “The Social and Moral Cost of Mass Incarceration in African American Communities,” discussing the social and moral effects of mass incarceration on African American communities. Roberts writes “radical changes in crime control and sentencing policies led to an unprecedented buildup of the United States prison population over the last thirty years ...Today's imprisonment rate is five times as high as in 1972 and surpasses that of all other nations”(qtd. in “Marc Mauer, Race to Incarcerate”). Mass incarceration has inclined into a controversial issue in the United States, economically, politically and socially.