Incarceration And Crime

The main argument within this article was that America has a poor approach to incarceration and is ultimately an expensive failure. However, the article provided many points on how our justice system could be improved upon. For example, they could change the harsh sentencing rules, crimes that are currently felonies (drugs), and the rehabilitation programs. All of these things would help to lower the incarceration rate which would ultimately lower overcrowding within our jails and prisons. Though these tools may take time to be put in place they would have highly beneficial outcomes.

The vast societal effects from mass incarceration have caused an increasingly alienated population to form in the U.S., which can be broadly classified in the dual areas of lasting effects and impacts to the family unit. First, the lasting effects of high incarceration rates are that they impact the rights of the convict, particularly African Americans. For example, noted civil rights attorney Michelle Alexander posits that the long term effects of mass incarceration operate to deny black Americans the future right to volte, the ability to obtain public benefits, the possibility to sit on juries, and ultimately the opportunity to secure gainful employment (Steiker, 2011), Moreover, professor Alexander argues that this mass incarceration together with the prior Jim Crow laws and the past practice of slaery in the U.S. operate to ensure that black Americans remain s subordinate class of citizens defined primarily by their race (Steiker, 2011).

Based on my interpretation of the reading, higher crime rate themselves has lowered crime rates. Base on many studies conducted and funded by the U.S. department of justice there has been a relationship between the incarceration and crime. Research has founded that reduced crime rates are associated with increase imprisonment rates. On the other hand, increase in crime rate are associated with a decrease in imprisonment rates. Based on this, I would have to say that higher incarceration rates had reduce crime rates.

The United States of America has the largest prison population in the world. The United States incarcerates six hundred ninety-three people per one hundred thousand people and boasts an incarceration rate that is almost five times higher than most other countries (Wagner & Walsh, 2016). The incarceration rate within the U.S. is significantly higher than the incarceration rates of other countries due to the prevalence of institutional racism within the American criminal justice system. While the criminal justice system unjustly targets minority individuals, African Americans and Hispanics are especially targeted (Brennan & Spohn, 2009). African Americans and Hispanics account for a minority of the U.S. population but make up the majority of the U.S. prison population. Despite comprising only 13.6% of the U.S. population (Rastogi, Johnson, Hoeffel, and Drewery, 2011), African Americans account for 37.8% of all prisoners in the U.S. (Inmate Race, 2017). Hispanics are also targeted by the criminal justice system at abnormally high rates. Hispanics make up

Incarceration should not be the only form of punishment in the United States just like it is not in most developed nations. I agree with Dr. Bryant’s week three statements about the word discretion being used as camouflage for discrimination. The stakeholders in the criminal justice system used huge amount of discretion when performing their duties. In this case, the law enforcement officers, prosecutors, defenders, judges etc. The police officer can decide when making an arrest to handcuff the accused, send the accused to the community based service program or gave the accused a ride to his or her parent and warn the accused not to do it again. It all depends on how the officer chooses to use the discretion at his disposal. Indiscriminate

Once upon a time, Americans could proudly say that America was the land of freedom and opportunity. As the Pledge of Allegiance states, “One nation under God, Indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.” However, under the current criminal justice system, more and more people lose their liberties because of the crimes they have committed. According to Roy Walmsley, a consultant of the United Nations and Associate of the International Center for prison studies, “In October 2013, the incarceration rate of the United States of America was the highest in the world, at 716 per 100,000 of the national population. While the United States represent about 4.4 percent of the world 's population, it houses

In the 1980’s and 90’s at a time when crime was in decline throughout the United States poor neighborhoods saw the beginning of what would soon become the great tragedy of mass incarceration. The topic of drugs had become a media sensation and political parties battled on which side could be the “toughest” to solve the pestering issue. Images of African Americans hooked on crack aired across televisions, newspapers and tabloids nationwide. Though crime rates were down, government used the media blast to gain funding of over two billion dollars to fund the DEA and local police forces in sweeps that would fill American prisons in numbers unprecedented in world history. Targeting poor and mostly African American neighborhoods, arrests made during this era conjure memories of Jim Crow racism and Convict Leasing leaving many of the convicts or even merely accused marred in an infinite loop of struggle inside and out of the prison system.

Have you ever questioned about the justice in the United States? Stevenson states that, “Today we have the highest rate of incarceration in the world. The prison population has increased from 300,000 people in the early 1970s to 2.3 million people today” (15). United States is a modern country that doesn’t serve justice to her citizen? 2.3 million prisoners are just embarrassing the whole country. You might want to know how bad the justice system is and how the heck cause 2.3 million prisoners to be in prison. Our system is defined by an error; which serve justice to the rich and injustice to the poor. It’s common to know that poor and color people are more likely to be convicted if they commit a small crime. We created a system like “Three strikes and you’re out” to show how strong we can be, and as the result of that, we have created the mass incarceration that no other countries can’t do. We are no better than a beast. We condemned the poor because we know they are helpless and we condemned the color people because of racial bias. What does justice really stand for? The justice should be changed in order to prevent mass incarceration in the future and focus on a fairness when it comes to trial.

Gregg Barak (2007) pointed how American’s failing mental health care system has attributed the overrepresentation of the mentally ill in U.S jails “Because of the large-scale denationalization of mental health facilities in the 1970s and 1980s, the number of people struggling with mental illness on their own has risen over the past three decades, and social institutions have been less than responsive to their needs.” (Barak, 2007: 587) Steven Raphael and Michael Stoll (2013) drew attention to the overrepresentation of mentally ill offenders in U.S jails and prisons. “Approximately half of state and federal prison inmates and over 60 percent of jail inmates report having mental health problems or symptoms indicative of mental illness. The

The United States of America has more people incarcerated than any other country on earth, a whopping 2,220,300 adults are currently locked behind bars. We have 500,000 more citizens locked up than China, a country 5 times our population run by an authoritarian government. From 1990 - 2000 the prison population increased by 1,000,000. The main reason for incarceration as a punishment in this country is rehabilitation, or so we have been told. In recent years an industry has developed that revolves around high incarceration rates and lengthy sentences, needless to say business is booming. The for-profit prison industry now makes millions off the backs of American inmates their families and every American taxpayer. The two largest

Currently the United States holds the leading position for having the largest prison population in the world. Considering this, the cost of re-incarcerating offenders after their release remains notably high to U.S Americans and our society. Recidivism is known as the reimprisonment of an individual that is released from prison but then later returns for being convicted of a new crime. However, there is essential data that proves the drastic reduction in recidivism through academic and vocational studies. Each year, it cost twice as much to provide a room and food for inmates than it would just to educate these prisoners.

There are over 2million people incarcerated today in the United States and Statistics show that the rates every

It is now a commonly acknowledged fact that the United States incarcerates too many of its citizens and locks them up for too long.

The United States of America is phrased by many, as being “the land of the free.” Yet, the Unites States currently has the highest per capita prison population than any other country. The United States makes up only 5% of the world’s population and of that 5%, 25% of our overall nation’s population is currently incarcerated. A few factors that attribute to our high rates of incarceration include, sentencing laws: such as mandatory- minimum sentencing, lack of initial deterrence from crime, the war on drugs and the presence of recidivism. With our ever growing incarceration rates and the cost of housing individual offenders averaging $22,000 a criminal justice agenda. Recidivism refers to a person 's relapse into criminal behavior resulting in rearrests, reconviction or return to prison with or without a new sentence during a three-year period following the prisoner 's release (National Institute of Justice.) Many programs have been implemented in our prison system to help reduce the recidivism rates. Programs such as educational/ vocational programming, reentry programs, substance abuse programs and subsidized employment are among many programs in which have been proven effective. Yet, due to costs deficits, the clock is ticking to find evidence based programs to invest in. So, the question currently being sought after is, which method is most effective in reducing recidivism rates?

Currently as a nation we use severity as our biggest form of deterrence; our threat of imprisonment has grown dramatically over time. In 1985 the average release time for a conviction of robbery was 32 months and in 2002 it jumped to a minimum of 53 months (Incarceration and Crime). We focus heavily on severity and longer incarceration rates; the idea is that a 10% increase in incarceration would lead to a 1.6%-5.5% decrease in crime (Lieka 2006) but this is not true. Prison rates have increased tenfold since 1970 and yet the crime rates have not dropped near those percents.The leading argument against increase in incarceration uses other states as examples of how ineffective it is; for example Florida heavily focuses on imprisonment to reduce crime with no effect (Incarceration and Crime). This idea would be great and a good mode of deterrence if those who go to prison actually learn their lessons and mend their future ways. Also if the unwanted effects of prison were at least tolerable this might deter crime but sadly even after experiment and evidence it is not a well functioning theory. The cost of funding our mass incarceration does balance out the decrease in overall crime. Besides when we have a nation who is majority hard on crimes compared to other crimes we end up severely punishing people who probably would respond better to rehabilitation than jail.