Consequences Of Mass Incarceration

Bruce Western’s, Punishment and Inequality in America, discusses the era of the “Prison Boom” that occurs from 1970-2003—when incarceration rates climbed almost five times higher than they had been in the twentieth century—while stating the effects and consequences that mass imprisonment created within the United States penal system. By discussing the disparities of incarceration between sex, age, race and education level, and how post-incarceration affects opportunities such as marriage and high-waged employment. Western provides an analysis of how the risk of incarceration accumulates over an individual’s lifespan.

The book explores the effect of mass incarceration on low-income areas, poverty places, and poor demographics. It explains that the high incarceration has a direct correlation to social problems of individuals that happen within these communities. It shows statistics of these poverty places having an increase in percentage of being sent to prison. I plan to use this in my research by providing the audience information on how individuals and citizens of communities

Our group chose the topic of mass incarceration because it is extremely relevant in this day and age. There are hundreds of thousands of American citizens that have been incarcerated for a variety of crimes. When mass incarceration was first introduced it was unknowingly supporting the “War on Drugs”, which we will go into more detail in the paper. The war on drugs inevitably became a war on people. The penalties of carrying different types of drugs became more severe, and those who were caught by the police were minority groups especially young African American men. The consequences of mass incarceration occur in more than just a jail cell. Once prisoners are released, it is extremely difficult to become employed once there is a conviction following your name. Even as supporters of The Black Lives Matter Movement protested against the unfair treatment of African Americans, those who resisted against authorities were imprisoned. Throughout this paper we will see the sociological perspective of mass incarceration on todays society.

In “Why Boys Don’t Play With Dolls,” Pollitt writes about the differences between growing up as a boy growing up as a girl. She brings up the stereotypes that society naturally creates between genders in early ages, which leads to the lifestyle and path that boys and girls are raised in. Parents and feminist alike play a big part in establishing these sex roles. They raise their kids wanting them to be successful at what they are expected to be good at based on their gender and the trend that has been set before them.

At the expense of the young, to the detriment of the poor, and on the backs of the immigrants is the means by which the private prison companies have constructed a business that trades freedoms for profit but more concerning is to what ends these freedoms are being exchanged. The advancement of the private prison system has changed the face of the prison industry as we know it. Because little attention has been given in the media to the private prison industry, they have been able to expand their influence and their revenue by means the average American would consider unscrupulous. Private prisons came about to act as the solution to a problem facing federal prisons, overcrowding, which was created due to the war on drugs, but in acting as a solution to one problem they created another one that could be more problematic than the one it intended to fix. Proponents of private, for profit, prisons claim that it is a better alternative than federal prisons because they can provide the same service for less and save taxpayers money in the process. They also contend that the service they provide would help to stimulate the economy. However, privatization of America’s prison systems will contribute to an increase in the incarceration rate and unfairly target certain demographics of the population, which could lead to psychological trauma affecting the people of those demography’s that it

MK Asante, in his book Buck: The Memoir, highlights the devastation of mass incarceration on the family structure and on individuals, particularly young individuals, who are incarcerated. Asante utilizes an informal tone and jargon the way in which the penal and justice systems dehumanizes those it is meant to reform. Asante’s informal approach and use of jargon turns the issue of mass incarceration into a conversation that engages readers. His feelings about the penal system and justice system are spelled out in the form of a narrative, thus making it easier for the reader to remain engaged. Brian Stevenson focuses on a variety of factors and their contribution to mass incarceration such as a lack of knowledge about mental health and the deterioration of one 's well being as a result of imprisonment. He utilizes anecdotes

Punishment and Inequality in America starts off by informing the reader of how much of a mass imprisonment problem we have here in America. The first chapter is riddled with statistics of who is being imprisoned, for what reasons are they being jailed, and inequality we see within our prison systems. Such statistics include that black men are six to eight times more likely to be in prison than whites, and that close to one-third of black high school dropouts were incarcerated in the year 2000. Although the statistics are eye-opening, it by no means explains to us why these numbers are the way they are. What Western does try and explain through these numbers is a what he refers to as the risk

The United States’ ever-expanding prison and jail population has brought about many questions regarding the side-effects of mass incarceration, namely involving the effects on the children and families from which those incarcerated are removed. Regardless of the perspectives on the appropriate position of incarceration in the criminal justice system, imprisonment disrupts many positive and nurturing relationships between parents and their children. In fact, more than 1.7 million children have a parent who is incarcerated in a state or federal prison as of 2007 (Glaze & Maruschak, 2008). These youths are at risk for developing behavior and school problems in addition to insecure attachment relationships. Parental incarceration, which may also be coupled with economic disadvantage and inconsistent living arrangements (Geller, Garfinkel, Cooper, & Mincy, 2009) can be an extremely difficult experience for children. It should come as no surprise that families with children suffer economic strain and instability when a parent is imprisoned, considering how each parent in today’s world typically needs to set aside time to earn an income to support their family, and most are unable to support their homes on one income. While it may be considered intrusive to some to intervene in the lives of children and families with incarcerated parents, research has suggested that there are positive societal benefits to intervening in the lives of incarcerated parents and their

Following release, they lose the right to vote, access to public housing, eligibility for federal grants and loans, and a wide span of career options. While people of any race can be incarcerated, there is a disproportionate impact on low-income communities of color. Additionally, while mass incarceration is not an inherited status, children of inmates are three times more likely than other children to have a run-in with the law (Conway & Jones 2014). In essence, given that mass incarceration exhibits many of the same characteristics and impacts as American slavery, it appears to be an extension of the previous system.

This article, “No Way My Boys Are Going To Be Like That,” converses that young children are becoming aware of gender processing, which means

Over the last half-century, the United States has turned more and more frequently to the use of incarceration as a form of punishment. Sentencing policies and stricter laws requiring mandatory minimums for certain offenses, no matter the conditions of the offense, have boosted the incarceration rate in this country to staggering heights. The typical issues that affect America’s prison systems are reflected in Jennifer Gonnerman’s book, Life on the Outside: The Prison Odyssey of Elaine Bartlett. Elaine Bartlett’s life, along with the lives of surrounding family and friends, is forever changed by her 16 years of incarceration. Elaine Bartlett is only one of many Americans that have been wronged by the cruel and unusual punishments implemented by a society claiming to have a fair, balanced, and equal justice system. A fair and balanced justice system that convicts people who carries the right amount of drugs in weight to have a mandatory incarceration for a minimum of 15 years to life, yet those who commit murder or rape may receive a lesser sentence. There is also the issue of transitioning back into society after being incarcerated for so many years. Incarceration does not just punish the offender; the offender’s family and friends are also negatively affected by the conviction and imprisonment of a loved one. Children could be put in the system or need to be raised by other members in the family. This could lead the children to deviate down the same path as their parent who

Mass Incarceration is a growing dilemma in the United States that populates our prisons at an alarming rate. Michelle Alexander is a professor at Ohio State University and a graduate of Stanford law school. She states in her award winning book, The new Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness “In less than thirty years, the U.S. penal population exploded from around 300,000 to more than 2 million” (Alexander, 6). These young men and women are unable to afford a decent lawyer because they come from such a poverty-stricken background. Men and women are at a financial disadvantage in our justice system. Lawyers and attorneys cost a fortune and most people can just simply not afford them. Others plead to their charges because

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.

Mass incarceration has been a problem in America for many years. Prisoners have been charged for wide range of reasons, but drug convictions is one of the highest. The first half of the novel suggest that the mass incarceration impacts the people of color. There are more colored people present in the prisons than white people. This shows that there is a distortion because white people do the same crime as the colored, but they are less likely to get jail time for it. The New Jim Crow suggests that the system is corrupted because colored people are pleading guilty because they fear of making situations worse. This causes more jail time for lesser degree crimes. On the other hand, white people are most likely manage to get away from incarceration.

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.