Mass Incarceration : Disparities, Reentry And Policy Implications Essay

In today’s society, discrimination is an issue that is considered to be a thing of the past. In a country with such diversity it is hard to believe that people living in the “land of the free” face issues of racism. This paper will focus specifically on the social problem of mass incarceration of minority groups and how the criminal justice system targets these groups. Although this social problem can be linked to specifically African Americans, the impacts of mass incarceration can be felt by almost everyone. I have chosen three articles that focus on how the criminal justice system is masking mass imprisonment a major problem in minority communities.

Mass Incarceration in the United States has been a large topic of choice because rapid growth in the prison and jail populations, the long sentences the inmates face, and the inability for some inmates to incorporate themselves back into society. Since the 1970’s the U.S. prison population quadrupled from 158 to 635 people per 100,000, causing the U.S. to gain the title of country with the highest incarceration rate. (Massoglia, Firebaugh, & Warner, 2013, p. 142; Muller, 2012) As the growth of the U.S prison and jail population rapidly increased, so did the growth of the three major contributors to that population – African Americans, Hispanics, and whites – with African American and

Recent sociological studies have focused on pressing social issues such as urban crime and mass incarceration, and examining the invisible link between urban crime, poverty and race. Research indicates that mass incarceration has always worked to the detriment of African Americans, especially the low-income earners (Western, 2006). The aftermath of this trend is that the employment prospects of former felons are significantly diminished (Pager, 2007). Felon disfranchisement in turn distorts the local and national politics of the county (Uggen, 2006). This paper focuses on addressing the contemporary trends and ramifications of mass incarceration of African Americans, and elucidating on the criminal justice policy and the factors contributing to the intangible but real racial divide.

The U.S. prison system is one of many great controversies when compared to other correctional systems. America’s prison population has increased by 700% (2.4 million current inmates) since the start of the war on drugs in 1971. As a result of this “war”, people that fall into the racial minority have suffered as a direct consequence of unjust legislation. Our prison system is known for its overrepresentation of minorities such as Blacks and Hispanics. This unfortunately gives these groups of people a perennial negative stigma as a result. I argue that the U.S. prison industrial-complex emphatically displays signs of prejudice and racism and disproportionately incarcerates people of color at a rate higher than whites. Yes, there are skeptics who think “the left’s prison-complex” is wrong about their theory of mass incarceration but the statistical data and concrete facts in support of my argument are very compelling.

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).

The problem to be address in this paper is the lack of reintegration programs and mass incarceration of African Americans in the United. Mass incarceration amongst African Americans has had a catastrophic impact on families and communities and continues to create a cycle of discrimination, which makes its nearly impossible as a race to progress. Because of the soaring incarceration rate in the United States, many prisons are over populated and lack resources and support to help inmates succeed once released from prisons. Since there is an insufficiency in resources, many of these men enter back into society in need of education and little job experience making it difficult to find a job, creating many of them to reoffend. Of all men released from prison 81.1% are unskilled or possessed no skills, 18.9% are semi-skilled or skilled workers with the average reading level being slightly below 8th grade and 42.5% having less than a 12th grade education. In the first three years of release, 73% of African Americans are rearrested. This is a critical issue that needs to be addressed by appropriate programs that focus on poverty, homeslessness, unemployment, substance abuse, and poor medical and mental health. The first step in the right direction is creating a policy that addresses those needs with a reintegration program through job readiness, education and health management. Reintegration programs will improve families, communities, and job opportunities. If

There are over one hundred twenty correctional facilities within America continuously growing over time. Within these facilities, more than two million prisoners are kept for committing various crimes during their lifetime. Out of the many people detained in these prisons, African Americans make up a significant portion of this population. Specifically, African American males contribute to its high number of inhabitants. From this information, it can be inferred that many families are left without providers and support. With this in mind, many poor neighborhoods and African American families lacking one or more providers struggle to maintain stability with jobs, financial dependency and

The United States currently has the highest incarcerated population in the world with 2.2 million adults incarcerated in 2014 (Kaeble, Glaze, Tsoutis, & Minton, 2016). African American males represent a disproportionate amount of the incarcerated population, which is defined by those confined in either prison or jail (Crutchfield & Weeks, 2015). Although, African-Americans account for roughly 13% of the United States population, they comprised 37% of the male prison population (Carson, 2015; U.S. Census Bureau, 2016) and 35.4% of the male jail population within the United States in 2014 (Minton & Zeng, 2015). The imprisonment of over 750,000 African American males constitutes a social issue because it targets a historically oppressed minority causing rippling social and economic effects throughout the country.

The United States Criminal Justice System has been what most citizens ask for a reform, but we’ve seen little to no change through the years. Currently, our country has less than 5 percent of the world’s population but almost 25 percent of the total prison population, meaning that we have the highest incarceration rates in the world and it’s been increasing through the past years. The United States of America in 1974 had 100 out of every 100,000 people incarcerated; today, roughly 700 out of the 100,000 people are prison (Madden, 2015, p,14). Mass incarceration has been one of the biggest problems in our Criminal Justice System and one of the biggest issues to be solved. American citizens have has several

Throughout recent decades in the United States, and other Western countries, the prison population has dramatically and exponentially risen from approximately 357,292 inmates in 1970 to 2,306,200 in the year 2014. This has been coined as the era of mass incarceration, with the United States becoming the largest prison nation in the world. Within these present statistics, one in seventeen white men, compared one in three black men will go to prison, illustrating the obvious inequality and racialized justice that is embedded throughout U.S. societal, political and legislative spheres. In the mid 1990’s the government, with the help of popular demand, enacted the ‘get tough’ prison ideology in which the “No Frills Prison Act” was passed (Johnson 1997). The idea behind this movement of a harsher prison environment, with the regulation and/or exclusion of certain amenities and recreational programming, further criminalized prison inmates while continuing to punish them once they were in prison. In present day, there have been many attempts to increase recreational opportunities and programs within prisons, including but not limited to sports, work, rehabilitation programs, educational programs and much more. Many researchers and criminal rights advocates have attempted to increase the awareness of the effectiveness from different types of recreational programs, with many resulting in positive outcomes. Through the combination of personal

The United States Prison Systems is at its all-time high. From 1984 to 2012 about 160,000 inmates were sentenced to life (Hamilton 805). In 2011, one million women were incarcerated or controlled by the Justice system, in which 68 percent of these women were black (Gross 32). Mass incarceration is a process of overfilling prisons with prisoners, who have committed minor and major crimes. The main targets were African Americans. In my proposal, we will explore the history of the US prison systems, examples of our current prison system; and how racism plays a big part because the United States prison system has a huge problem with mass incarceration, and the

The Prison Industrial Complex has created a system of force free labor that strips prisoners of their political, economic, and social rights, ultimately relegating them to second-class citizenship, inside and outside of the prison walls. Denying former enslaved people citizenship was essential to the formation of the original union and hundreds of years later, America remains a nonegalitarian society. Not only are those incarcerated barred from suffrage, as throughout much of US history for African Americans, but they also endure legalized discrimination in housing, education, public welfare and employment. Though there has been a change in language and people are no longer explicitly discriminatory or prejudiced based on race, they remain so on criminality and income, both significant indicators of race in this country. This is most evident once persons are released from prison. Not only can they be returned to prison for the most minor infractions, like missing a parole meeting or associating with the wrong crowd, but they also face great adversity when trying to get back into the workforce or readjust to normal life. It is no secret that having a history of incarceration impedes future economic success, and Pew data finds that incarceration reduced subsequent wages by eleven percent, cut annual employment by nine weeks, and reduced yearly earnings by forty percent (Khalek, 2001). This all in addition to the psychological harm and the damage to family home units prisons

Did you know that the United States has more prisoners than any other country in the world? Well, shockingly enough, it does. “More than 1.57 million inmates sat behind bars in federal, state, and county prisons and jails around the country as of December 31, 2013” (Flatow). The major problem this causes, other than diminishing the image of the U.S., is the substantial amount money that we spend on our prisons. Every year, billions of dollars go toward our justice system and the prisons that are connected to them. “Prior to this year, the federal prison population had spiked more than 790 percent since 1980” (Flatow). Across the country, racial issues continue to be a problem as a black male is six times more likely than a white to be in prison, and a Hispanic male is 2.4 times more likely (Flatow). Racial controversy has continued to spread. As the years go by it appears that more and more crimes are linked to racism and supremacy. These crimes may consist of

America is known for having the largest number of prisoners in the world. One out of 10 adults in the United States has been to prison. The United States holds 25% of all prisoners in the world. The increase in the number of prisoners throughout the years since 1970 has been caused by factors like the dismantling of the mental health system in the country, introduction of mandatory minimum sentence laws, and laws that allow for harsh punishment on any person caught dealing or using drugs. However, within the prison population, there are worrying and disturbing racial disparities. According to the National Associated for the Advancement of Colored People, African Americans make 34% of the 6.8 million prison population and are imprisoned 5 times more than Whites. “If African Americans and Hispanics were incarcerated at the same rates as whites, prison and jail populations would decline by almost 40%” (NAACP).

The United States holds five percent of the world’s population; however, the United States holds roughly twenty-five percent of the worlds prison population. Mass incarceration within the United States has been a severe issue over the years and mass incarceration is increasing drastically. Mass incarceration is a term used by sociologist to describe the increasing prison population over the past forty years. News broadcast may show that certain racial groups are incarcerated more than others but statistics suggest that certain racial groups are in fact incarcerated more than others. According to the American Civil Liberties Union, one in every fifteen African American males eighteen or older is incarcerated, one in every thirty-six Hispanic males is incarcerated, and only one in every 106 white males is incarcerated. In addition to the social injustice of prisons, the amount of money used towards incarceration is outrageous and unfortunately, is increasing more frequently than money spent for U.S education. According to the U.S. Department of Justice (2013), federal and states governments spend approximately 80 billion dollars annually to operate prisons and jails for those convicted. However, the U.S. annually spends more than 80 billion dollars on correctional facilities. Government budgets do not include the cost for health care benefits for the correctional staff, health care provided to inmates, and certain pension obligations, totaling up to 13.9% of corrections costs.