Mass Incarceration And Mass Allocation

There is no question that mass incarceration is a worldwide epidemic that needs to be discussed and addressed. America has five percent of the world’s population, but 25 percent of the world’s prison population (Just Leadership USA, 2017) Various policies dated back centuries helped to create this problem of mass incarceration (Just Leadership USA, 2017). Today there are 2.3 million Americans incarcerated throughout the state, local, and federal jails (Just Leadership USA, 2017). New York City (NYC) houses approximately 10,000 inmates per year; 43.7% of these inmates are diagnosed with having a mental health disability (New York City Department of Corrections, 2017). 54% of the inmates on Rikers Island are arrested for a minor offense and should be able to fight their cases from home; however, in many instances the family members are of low socio-economic status and unable to post bail (New York City Department of Corrections, 2017). Minor offenses include loitering, jumping the turnstiles, unnecessary Parole / Probation violations, and trespassing. In many instances, it is the mentally ill and homeless individuals who are arrested for trespassing as they elect to sleep in the subways instead of taking residency in a shelter. Moreover, many of these offenses does not have to result in an arrest. Police officers have the autonym to let some of these individuals go with a warning, desk ticket, and/or summons.

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.

Over the past few decades, the United States has witnessed a huge surge in the number of individuals in jail and in prison. Evidence suggests the mass imprisonment policy from the last 40 years was a horrible catastrophe. Putting more people in prison not only ruined lives, it disrupted families, prevented ex-prisoners to find housing, to get an education, or even a good job. Regrettably, the United States has a higher percent of its population incarcerated than any other country. America is responsible for a quarter of the world’s inmates, and its incarceration rate is increasing exponentially. The expense produced by these overcrowded prisons cost the country a substantial amount of money every year. Although people are incarcerated for a number of reasons, the country’s prisons are focused on punishment rather than reform, and the result is a misguided system that fails to rehabilitate criminals or discourage crime. By researching mass incarceration, I hope to get society to understand that incarcerating an individual not only effects the family, but we will look at the long term consequences on society and how the United States can remain safe and, at the same time, undo much of the damage that results from large-scale imprisonment.

Why prisoners need to go to the prison? I can never forget the scene in The Shawshank Redemption, which Brooks Halten finally committed to suicide when he was released after 50 years life incarceration. The form of mass incarceration, prison, is supposed to be the place where prisoners can rehabilitate in order to return into society. Ex-offenders aren’t eligible for public welfare such as Medicaid and public housing (Stevenson, 2012). They are legally discriminated against when applying for appropriate jobs (Stevenson, 2012). So the issue rises: prisoners rehabilitate for what? To be thrown back into economy without jobs? To go back into communities without hope? If modern mass incarceration isn’t primarily concerning with rehabilitating prisoners, what is its purpose? Why the prisons are continuing in expansion? Whose interests do prisons serve?

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.

At any given time, there are approximately 2 million American citizens incarcerated and nearly 700,000 inmates returning to their communities each year. (Petitt & Western, 2004; Western, 2001). Since most prisoners are eventually released, mass incarceration has in turn produced a steep rise in the number of individuals reentering society and undergoing the process of social and economic reintegration. (Travis, 2005). During the period between 1982 and 2007, the number of Americans incarcerated in jails and prisons increased by 274% (Pew Center on the States, 2009). In addition to the increase of the individuals incarcerated, there is an even larger amount of individuals under community supervision, with a recent study finding that one in every 48 American adults are either on probation or parole on any given day (Glaze & Bonczar, 2011). Recent statistics show that the percentage of parolees re-incarcerated after release currently stands at 32% (Maruschak and Parks, 2012).

At the beginning of the semester our Professor gave a speech on her personal accomplishment and to start she asked us how many of us knew someone who either was or had been incarcerated. Most of us in the class raised our hands in the affirmative, including myself. This may not seem like much in a classroom with roughly 25 students, but it does have some merit. The United States of America accounts for “5% of the world’s population, but 25% of the world’s prison population” (DuVernay, 13th). Within the last year California legislators have introduced Senate Bill 10 or the Bail: pretrial release bill, which seeks to eliminate pretrial detention and bail requirements for accused individuals who meet public safety criteria ("SB-10 Bail: pretrial release", 2017-2018). I argue that SB 10 doesn’t go far enough and should include that low level non-violent first offenders be offered alternative methods to incarceration. A policy such as SB 10 would allow California to serve as a model, reducing the effects of mass incarceration, creating a fairer system and eliminating coerced plea deals.

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

Mass incarceration is a real problem that is currently affecting minority groups across America. Even though the U.S. is a country where everyone is equal to the eyes of the law no matter their race, it seems that is not the case anymore. Throughout, its history the U.S. government has taken advantage of minority groups and has manipulated its laws in order cast out those who aren’t considered worthy enough to belong to the American society. The time has come to put a stop to this discriminatory government and the time has come for the judicial system to change its laws and policies to give an equal opportunity to any human being. Race shouldn't define your future or the probabilities of someone going to prison. Everyone should be given an

Over time, policies have been changed and implemented into our government system to enforce change in our society. Implementation of policies is meant to create a boundary line to minimize crime and maintain safety in communities. Most of the times, those policies are strictly enforced to disproportionately target certain ethnic groups under actions of racism and stereotyping. But the consequences of crossing that line to go against government policies cost you more than a bailout fine, resulting in a variety of punishments in which the government and the public see fit for the given crime. To show a deep understanding of the concept, Melinda Anderson explains in “How Mass Incarceration Pushes Black Children Further Behind School,” how the

Hillary Clinton spoke at Columbia University in reference to the mass incarceration and criminal justice reform. She talked about the riot that happened two days before the speech. She wants to end the" era of mass incarceration". She also connected the prison population to broader patterns of inequality. She believes with out the mass incarceration fewer people would be living in poverty. Not only does she wants to reintroduce the former inmates into mainstream society to give them a better chance to succeed. She goes on to talk about what she would do to restructure policing. She wants to put body camera on all police officers. She made a promise to make sure federal funds for state and local law enforcement are used for bettering the practice,

In Michelle Alexander’s The New Jim Crow, Alexander identifies the racialized mass incarceration problem that we have in our criminal justice system. Reading the book, you can see that mass incarceration is a social problem. This means that the problem can follow the six stages of the policy process. If I were a claimsmaker, I could assert that mass incarceration is a problem by following the six stages.

For the issue of Mass Incarceration, addressing certain policies that allow for systematic racial inequalities to happen would be a first step in the right direction for this nation. The Obama administration has been working on reforming these injustice policies over his term, with the most recently successful one in 2010, The Fair Sentencing Act. The 2010 Act would eliminate minimum sentencing for those caught with crack, “Eliminating mandatory minimum sentences and cutting back on excessively lengthy sentences; for example, by imposing a 20-year maximum on prison terms.” (Sentencing Project). Minority population are more likely to possess and use crack cocaine than whites. Crack tends to be cheaper, so it's found more in poor, undereducated,

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.

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.