Incarceration In America

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

Mass Incarceration is a huge problem in United States culture. No other country in the world incarcerates its population the way that America does. “The U.S. incarcerates more people than any country in the world – both per capita and in terms of total people behind bars. The U.S. has less than 5 percent of the world’s population, yet it has almost 25 percent of the world’s incarcerated population.” Worse yet the majority of the incarcerated individuals belong to a minority group despite not participating in illegal activity any more frequently than their white counterparts. Is the United States criminal justice system racist and if so what is the cause behind this racism. After the end of slavery, many southern black Americans traveled to the north to escape endless violence and discrimination. In the south they could only find low paying field jobs whereas in the northern cities there were steady factory jobs promised as well as the hope that discrimination could be escaped. The northerners while against slavery were not egalitarian and were not in favor of hoards of black Americans surging into their cities and taking jobs away from the white working poor. The need for social control by white Americans only grew with the population of black Americans living in the cities and working in the factories. The rhetoric of “law and order” first came about in the late 1950s as white opposition to the Civil Rights Movement was encouraged by southern governors and law enforcement.

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).

Mass Incarceration is a predicament in the U.S. because in the land of the free, there are more than two million people in prison. Prisons are homes to the majority of twenty-two percent of the U.S. population. The U.S. has a massive incarceration rate, seven hundred and sixteen per every one hundred thousand. The U.S. makes five percent of the world’s population and the third country in which most people live in but number one incarcerating humans.

Law enforcement officers are authorized by federal, state, and local lawmakers to arrest and confine persons suspected of crimes. The judicial system is authorized to confine persons convicted of crimes. This confinement, whether before or after a criminal conviction, is called incarceration.

Despite the United States being the global leader in incarceration rates, Incarceration is also an issue in several other countries. Mass Incarceration is a social phenomenon that is typically discussed solely as an American crisis, but Australia and Brazil experience this crisis as well. Brazil and Australia also share a history of slavery which has been influential towards the prevalence of mass imprisonment which is why their history will be discussed as well.

According to Alexander, so many black men are missing because they are under the criminal justice system. In today’s society, there has been a mass incarceration of black men due to the federal program called the war on drugs. Because of this mass incarceration, a lot of black men are far from home without being able to raise their children. “Hundreds of thousands of black men are unable to be good fathers for their children, not because of a lack of commitment or desire but because they are warehoused in prisons, locked in cages” (Alexander 738). African Americans were victims of slavery in the past; however, in today’s society the number of black men in prison is even bigger than the black men enslaved in the past. “More black men are imprisoned today than at any other moment in our nation’s history” (Alexander 740). The war on drugs makes this possible because

Since the 1980s, the United States prison population has quadrupled to 2.4 million inmates; with nearly half of the inmates in federal prison serving time for drug offenses. The majority of America’s general population has been hoodwinked into believing that the prison system helps prevent crime, but the side effects of mass incarceration is like spilling gasoline on a burning car. The side effects of fabricating additional prison complexes for the sole purpose of preventing crime will continue to deem societies ignorance towards our broken prison system. The United States’ prison system is a warehousing institution that is vastly expensive to society and degrading to humanity; oppressive that neither rehabilitates nor protects our society. With the collaborative focus the general population, policy makers and design & construction teams set on making a change, the design and construction field can help heal those affected by the broken prison system.

Every year the amount of individuals that are being incarcerated continue to escalate. Unfortunately, there are various reasons as to why this is. Our prison system is being exploited. Every building has its max capacity—its limits, and our federal and state penitentiaries are at their maximum limit. The prisons are starting to become so over crowded that it is becoming a serious hazard to not only the individuals that are being incarcerated, but also to the friends and families that are affected because of the prison system. That is why I have decided to help. However, in order to help alleviate this particular issue, I need to focus on the one concept that is the most influential when it comes to preventing

Why do you think the United States incarcerates so many more people than other countries? First it is important to acknowledge the fact that the US does not just incarcerates many people but the number of people US prison's is actually the highest in the world. So what cause such a great number of people to go to prison?

There are many issues within the prison system today. For example, the high incarceration rate and unjust laws. Over the year, there have been few changes that have been made to repair these problems in our prison system. There are several things we can do to fix these issues.

Prison is a facility used to punish those who have committed a crime or detain those who are awaiting trial, it is a building in which people are legally held. The main purpose of imprisonment is to reform, deter and eliminate a threat from society. Marxists see the government as a way for bourgeoisie to maintain their powerful position in society. Althusser argues that the state consists of two elements: the repressive state apparatus (RSA) and the ideological state apparatus. (ISA) Both apparatuses are used to maintain the bourgeoisie in power. The repressive state apparatus uses force; this can be seen through the use of the law enforcement or prisons to maintain power whilst the ideological state apparatus is used by influencing the way people think.

One simple question asked by many familiar with the American prison system is “Is it Effective?” The word effectiveness can take on many meanings such as cost effective or effective in reducing recidivism. Recidivism, according to Merriam-Webster dictionary, is the “tendency to relapse into a previous condition or mode of behavior; especially: relapse into criminal behavior”. In the United States, the time of relapse into criminal behavior has been measured by as much as 8 years by the Bureau of Justice. It is the belief of many professionals and experts that American prisons are both cost-ineffective, and ineffective in reducing recidivism rates. The focus of American prisons and justice system is primarily to punish the criminal.

has one of the highest incarceration rates among the western countries, but still has high crime rates. The U.S. used to have a steady and average incarceration rates until the 1980’s when crime began to rise. In response harsher sentencing and laws were put in place to deter crime; however, crime continued rise; thus, so did incarceration. Imprisonment should be a last resort and many countries with lower crime rates rarely sentence people to prison.

The U.S. incarcerates 716 people for every 100,000 residents, more than any other country. In fact, our rate of incarceration is more than five times higher than most of the countries in the world, resulting in the United States of American having incarceration rate far higher than any other country. The total number of prisoners held under the jurisdiction of state and federal correctional authorities on December 31, 2015 (1,526,800) decreased by 35,500 (down more than 2%) from the previous year. Researchers have studied different trends and causes of prison overcrowding; one that's 'prevalent is racial disparities towards minorities. Though African Americans and Hispanics make up approximately 32% of the US population, they comprised 56% of all incarcerated people in 2015. African Americans and whites use drugs at similar rates, but the imprisonment rate of African Americans for drug charges is almost 6 times that of whites. Prison overcrowding is caused by several different of issues, such as enough dorm room in prisons, crime rates changing rapidly, amendments to laws and new improvements to law enforcement tactics. Overcrowding in prisons causes many problems, which is why it is a serious concern in the U.S. Once the causes of crowding have been established, researchers can begin to address the problems it causes and deal with them. According to Vera.org/priceofprisons, The United States spends over $80 billion on incarceration each year. Being a Florida native, my