Incarceration Of The United States

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).

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?

Mass incarceration has recently become a major problem within the United States. Although crime rates have dropped since the 1990s, incarceration rates have soared. This trend is largely associated with increased enforcement of drug-related crimes. Unfortunately, though not surprisingly, this problem involves racial discrepancies when regarding these mass incarcerations. Incarcerations appear to be the most prominent throughout urban areas and the south, which happen to be the areas where African American males often reside or where racial politics are known to be apparent. In turn, this leads to disproportionate imprisonments. This problem requires immediate attention, but aspects of state and local politics have intensified incarcerations due a variety of factors, which include the state’s focus on the financial incentives that the federal war on drugs has created, the “tough on crime” stance that many politicians posses (largely republican), and the lack of rehabilitation services.

Mass incarceration is a major problem in the United States. Since the tough on crime movement that began to emphasize more punishment and creating new policies such as; three strikes law, truth-in sentencing laws, mandatory sentencing, and determinate sentencing, our prisons and jails have become overcrowded. The three strikes law increases the prison sentence of an offender convicted of three felonies or serious crime. Usually the punishment ranges from a minimum of 25 years to life in prison. The truth-in sentencing laws require the offender to serve a substantial amount of their prison sentence (usually around 85 percent) before they are eligible for release on parole. The mandatory sentencing requires a minimum period of incarceration that the offender must serve regardless of the history of the offender or the nature of the circumstance. These get tough policies have implicated longer prison and jail sentences and has reduced the amount of discretion that the judges, parole/probation officers and prison and jail administrators. These actions have consequently increased the prison and jail population, which causes an increase in money spent on jails and prisons.

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

Incarceration is the state in which a person is confined within a prison, this can be known as imprisonment. Imprisonment within the United States is mostly due to the illegal use of drugs. Drug Offenses are the most common cause of incarceration, an astounding forty-six percent, compared to the second most common causes. These causes include the illegal handling, and usage of weapons, explosives, and arson; these Offenses only hold a lightly rounded total of seventeen percent. The list of Offenses continuing from there decrease in percentage rates, the list contains the following in order from greatest to least amount of cases; Immigration, Sex Offenses, Extortion, Fraud, Bribery, Burglary, Larceny, Property Offenses, Robbery, Homicide, Aggravated Assault, and Kidnapping Offenses, Miscellaneous, Courts or Corrections, Banking and Insurance, Counterfeit, Embezzlement, Continuing Criminal Enterprise, then National Security Risks. Ages of those incarcerated have a range from the beginning of adolescence to the elderly. The security system of prisons is separated into five main categories; Minimum, Low, Medium, High, and Unclassified. Minimum and low-security levels are for common offenses such as theft. Medium and high classifications are for homicide and national security risks. Unclassified is for those who have not yet been assigned an area of security.

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 United States has the largest prison population in the world. The U.S.’s path to our over population has been decades in the making. “The United States makes up about 4 percent of the world’s population, and it accounts for 22 percent of the world’s prison population.” (Lopez). Prison over population is a growing concern within our society creating and contributing factors include longer sentences, rising costs, prison gangs, rapes, racism and mental health issues.

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.

Have you ever question 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). Is United States is a modern country that doesn’t serve justice to her citizen? 2.3 million of 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 define 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 convict 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 change in order to prevent mass incarceration in the future and focus on a fairness when it comes to trial.

in recent decades, violent crimes in the United States of America have been on a steady decline, however, the number of people in the United States under some form of correctional control is reaching towering heights and reaching record proportions. In the last thirty years, the incarceration rates in the United States has skyrocketed; the numbers roughly quadrupled from around five hundred thousand to more than 2 million people. (NAACP)In a speech on criminal justice at Columbia University, Hillary Clinton notes that, “It’s a stark fact that the United States has less than five percent of the world’s population, yet we have almost 25 percent of the world’s total prison population. The numbers today are much higher than they were 30, 40 years ago, despite the fact that crime is at historic lows.” (washington post) How could this be? Are Americans more prone to criminal activity than the rest of the world? How could they be more prone to criminal activity if crime rates have been dropping? Numbers like that should be cause for concern, because if crime rates are dropping then it is only logical for one to expect the number of incarceration to go down as well; unfortunately, the opposite is true. Shockingly, there seem to be a few people who actually profits from keeping people in jails. The practice of mass incarceration who most see as a major problem in the United States of America is actually beneficial to some. The prison system in the United States who was create to

Preamble: Whereas at this time, many of the incarcerated men, women, and children of our great nation are not sufficiently educated to be employed by the various corporations in the United States of America. To further develop the potential workforce of America, these incarcerated peoples should become proficient in the reading and writing of the English language. This in turn will help reduce the tax rates of the Federal Bureau of Prisons by lessening the amount of people imprisoned. According to the article Educated Prisoners are Less Likely to Return to Prison found in the Journal of Correctional Education, the prisoners who undergo an educational program during their incarceration are far less likely to return than prisoners who did not received any education during their confinement. In the state of Ohio, the total rate of recidivism (an inmate 's relapse back into criminal behavior after they received sanctions or underwent an intervention for a previous crime) was 40 percent while the prisoners who had completed an academic program during imprisonment had an overall rate of 18 percent. When the recidivism rate is lowered, these aforementioned correctional education programs produce hundreds of millions of dollars worth of savings annually for the country. Additionally, the education of the incarcerated peoples of America will increase the national literacy rate and promote the general welfare of the country.

Incarceration rates in the United States, and closer to home – in Ohio, have been rising at astonishing rates over the last 20 years. Rising incarceration rates stem from increased sentencing of non-violent crimes, little attention to rehabilitation within most prison walls, and extremely high recidivism rates. The problem of the increasing prison population touches many areas of our society – from reduced workforce to increased state funding for prisons to the adverse effects on children growing up in single-parent households – but has received little public or political attention. Looking at this issue from a social capital standpoint it is important to understand that “social capital keeps bad things from happening to good kids” and then applying this to communities with many families affected by having a member in the penal system (Putnam 296). The rate of recidivism is also increasingly high and an area that must be addressed to move forward in a productive way to ending this problem. When looking at data provided by Ohio’s Department of Rehabilitation and Correction, the current penal population is almost 50,000 individuals (49,789 as of 11/13/2012) (DRC). The average cost of keeping a non-violent offender in prison is approximately $26,000 per year (CEPR). Calculations based on these estimates show that incarceration is costing Ohio approximately $1.3 billion each year. With such a financial burden on Ohio, it is time that this issue was taken seriously and actively