Mass Incarceration In The 20th Century

Bruce Western’s, Punishment and Inequality in America, discusses the era of the “Prison Boom” that occurs from 1970-2003—when incarceration rates climbed almost five times higher than they had been in the twentieth century—while stating the effects and consequences that mass imprisonment created within the United States penal system. By discussing the disparities of incarceration between sex, age, race and education level, and how post-incarceration affects opportunities such as marriage and high-waged employment. Western provides an analysis of how the risk of incarceration accumulates over an individual’s lifespan.

When it comes to mass incarceration, the United States is at the top of the list when it comes to the highest prison numbers in the world. When I first heard of mass incarceration, I did not know much about it. I would have also never compared it to the Jim crow laws that existed into the early and mid 1900s. Michelle Alexander does a good Job outlining the parallels between Jim crow laws and current day mass incarceration. In The New Jim Crow, Michelle Alexander analyzes the thirteenth amendment. The thirteenth amendment states “Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction." (The

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 known as a net of laws, policies, and rules that equates to the American criminal justice system. This series of principles of our legal system works as an entrance to a lifelong position of lower status, with no hope of advancement. Mass incarceration follows those who are released from prison through exclusion and legalized discrimination, hidden within America. The New Jim Crow is a modernized version of the original Jim Crow Laws. It is a modern racial caste system designed to keep American black men and minorities oppressed with laws and regulations by incarceration. The system of mass incarceration is the “new Jim Crow” due to the way the U.S. criminal justice system uses the “War on Drugs” as the main means of allowing discrimination and repression. America currently holds the highest rate of incarceration in the world, and even more African American men imprisoned, although white men are more likely to commit drug crimes but not get arrested. The primary targets of the criminal justice system are men of color. Mass incarceration is a rigid, complex system of racial control that resembles Jim Crow.

Mass incarceration became a public policy issue in the United States in the early 2010s. Now in 2016, there is still much debate over the country’s incarcerated population and incarceration rate. The nation has the highest incarcerated population in the world, with 2,217,947 inmates, in front of China with 1,649,804. America incarcerates 693 inmates per 100,000 residents, only the African island nation Seychelles incarcerates at a higher rate, with 799 for every 100,000 residents. The problem of mass incarceration continues to be assessed in various contexts. Recent analyses are historian Elizabeth Hinton’s From the War on Poverty to the War on Crime, legal scholar Michelle Alexander’s The New Jim Crow, and criminologist Dr. Elizabeth Brown’s “Toward Refining the Criminology of Mass Incarceration: Group-Based Trajectories of U.S. States, 1977—2010.”

The epidemic of mass incarceration affects many families within the United States. The problems of mass incarceration have been echoed far and wide, but it was not until recent years that the issue has been acknowledged, let alone fully addressed. Authors such as MK Asante and Bryan Stevenson, and filmmakers such as Ava Duvernay, have all discussed mass incarceration and its common threads such as the collapse of family structures, damage to mental, physical, and communal health, amongst other lasting impacts. Despite the commonalities, each artist takes on a different perspective on the issue and presents it in a different light.

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 United States’ ever-expanding prison and jail population has brought about many questions regarding the side-effects of mass incarceration, namely involving the effects on the children and families from which those incarcerated are removed. Regardless of the perspectives on the appropriate position of incarceration in the criminal justice system, imprisonment disrupts many positive and nurturing relationships between parents and their children. In fact, more than 1.7 million children have a parent who is incarcerated in a state or federal prison as of 2007 (Glaze & Maruschak, 2008). These youths are at risk for developing behavior and school problems in addition to insecure attachment relationships. Parental incarceration, which may also be coupled with economic disadvantage and inconsistent living arrangements (Geller, Garfinkel, Cooper, & Mincy, 2009) can be an extremely difficult experience for children. It should come as no surprise that families with children suffer economic strain and instability when a parent is imprisoned, considering how each parent in today’s world typically needs to set aside time to earn an income to support their family, and most are unable to support their homes on one income. While it may be considered intrusive to some to intervene in the lives of children and families with incarcerated parents, research has suggested that there are positive societal benefits to intervening in the lives of incarcerated parents and their

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?

The mass incarceration in the United States, has grown hand in hand with the well-disguised scheme of racialized social control that worked similarly to Jim Crow institutions.  Howard Zinn describes social-economic structures that justified slavery, also prevented a class movement between poor whites and slaves that would threaten the power of the elite. The birth of white privilege and segregation of African Americans aided in creating Jim Crow policies and in the criminal justice and political spheres. American society is still systematized around preserving and safeguarding white privilege. The uneven path America took toward emancipation, freedom and partial radical equality resulted in the failure to pay black soldiers equally, the migration of freed blacks from southern states and the highly racist attitudes whites held toward blacks. Therefore “white privilege simply confers dominance, gives permission to control, and blank check” to pass and implement laws that would benefit one group over the other”.

Mass incarceration has had a huge impact in the United States on a multitude of levels. The costs of many people in jail has had a huge impact on the U.S. economy. Using taxpayers money for funding mass incarceration has left less money for other programs much needed in our society, such as higher education and health care. Mass incarceration has broken up families and led to the decay of communities. Without a doubt, mass incarceration has impacted the lives of African Americans. This group of people has been the most affected by this phenomenon. (Human Rights Watch & Golvin, 2008).

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.

The Mass Incarceration in the United States is a major topic of discussion in our society and has raised many questions about our criminal justice system. There are few topics disputed as much in criminal justice as the relationship between race, ethnicity, and criminal outcomes. Specifically, the large disparities that minorities face regarding incarceration in our country. Minorities such as Hispanics and African Americans are sentenced at far higher rates than their white counterparts. There are multiple factors that influence this such as the judicial system, racial profiling by law enforcement, and historical biases (Kamula, Clark-Coulson, Kamula, 2010). Additionally, the defendants race was found to be highly associated with either a jail or prison sentence; with the “odds increasing 29 percent for black defendants, and 44 percent for Hispanic defendants” (King, Johnson, McGeever, 2010).

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.