Persuasive Essay On Guantanamo Bay

Mass incarceration is an issue that defines us as a society. Today, the United States of America makes up about five percent of the world’s population and has twenty-five percent of the world’s prisoners. Also, one of every one hundred adults are locked up, and one in every thirty-seven adults in the United States is under some form of correctional supervision: in addition, African Americans are incarcerated at more than five times the rate of whites. Young black people went through many difficulties; however, they are still called super predators by Hillary Clinton. One of many difficulties is the African slavery, although it was over a century ago, it left a scar and a horrible memory in everyone's mind. All the phenomenons that occurred in our country during the last century gathered thoughts and escalated the problem of mass incarceration which made the people including the police look differently at African American people. I am against the mass incarceration issue. Opposing Donald Trump, I think we should reduce the number of people behind bars with cautions, because It is a complex subject that has many causes and effects in the long term to the people inside and outside the prison.

Capital punishment is one of the most controversial topics in today’s world. Many people believe that it is morally wrong to have capital punishment as a sentence to a crime. People also do believe that it is morally permissible for a severe crime. Capital punishment is also known as the death penalty. It can be given as a sentence when somebody is convicted of an extremely violent crime. The biggest issue that can be seen with this is that somebody could be innocent and sentenced with the death penalty because of the nature of the crime that they have been accused of even if they didn’t commit it. I believe that there is a moral line between using the death penalty and using other forms of punishment.

Through the social contract theory comes, The Guantanamo Bay. This prison was established in 1898 when the United States took control of Cuba during the Spanish-American War. After September 11, 2001, the government knew that the “war on terror” between the United States and terrorists would not be good. Therefore, they took a new measures. Since early 2002, a part of the prison has imprisoned a small group of detainment camps for the Al Qaeda and the Taliban combatants who were captured by the AMerican military post-9/11 wars in Afghanistan and

Today, it seems almost incomprehensible that so many people with serious mental illnesses reside in prisons instead of receiving treatment. Over a century and a half ago, reform advocates like Dorothea Dix campaigned for prison reform, urging lawmakers to house the mentally ill in hospitals rather than in prisons. The efforts undertaken by Dix and other like-minded reformers were successful: from around 1870 to 1970, most of the United States’ mentally ill population was housed in hospitals rather than in prisons. Considering reformers made great strides in improving this situation over a century and a half ago. Granted, mental hospitals in the late 19th and early 20th century were often badly run and critically flawed, but rather than pushing for reform of these hospitals, many politicians lobbied for them to close their doors, switching instead to a community-based system for treating the mentally ill. Although deinstitutionalization was originally understood as a humane way to offer more suitable services to the mentally ill in community-based settings, some politicians seized upon it as a way to save money by shutting down institutions without providing any meaningful treatment alternatives. This callousness has created a one-way road to prison for massive numbers of impaired individuals and the inhumane warehousing of thousands of mentally ill people. Nevertheless, there are things that can be done to lower the rate mentally ill persons are being incarcerated. Such

Youth incarceration is a growing dilemma in the United States that populates facilities as well as ruins lives at an alarming rate. As a society we cannot expect our kids to be the future of this nation when we are placing them in facilities where they become victims of emotional, physical, and sexual abuse that is far worse for them than adults. Michelle Alexander is a professor at Ohio State University and a graduate of Standford Law school. She states in her award-winning book, The new Jim Crow: Mass incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness "Children are five times more likely to be sexually assaulted once being placed into a facility" (Alexander,123).  Adolescents being detained causes many problems that are much more detrimental to them than adults. Some of them will now have exposure to drugs and gangs. Others will become victims of sexual abuse from other older inmates or staff members and risk transmitting sexual diseases. Most young juveniles have a mental illness that has not been treated or they become suicidal when staying in a facility.  These young people are still adapting to their environment and should not be treated as adults.  They are unable to grow and develop when we are punishing them like adults and trapping them in the US justice system.  The families of these children will now suffer knowing what their child faces in these facilities. As a nation we cannot consider ourselves civilized when we are placing these young people in facilities that punish them like adults.

Did you know, as American taxpayers, maintaining the prison at Guantánamo has costed $4.8 billion since it had opened in 2002? Well this al back to “ The Global War on Terror” under the Bush administration that,. response to the 9/11 attacks, targeted middle eastern regions of the world;, collecting men from left to right by heavily armed American soldiers. Unfortunately, some of them are destined to pay for another man’s crime by serving time in Guantanamo Bay. Guantanamo Bay, located within a naval base in Cuba, became a facility purposed to hold alleged enemy combatants and terrorists alike. Because of later documented injustices reported against detainees, it gained negative spotlight by both citizens and world leaders. When Obama succeeded in presidency, closing the facility became one of his priorities for a number of reasons.

The United States military base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, has been occupied by over 700 Middle Eastern men suspected of terrorism since 2002. It has been home to some of the most heinous suspected terrorist to ever walk on this Earth. What to do with this military base, has been a major source of conflict within our nation and with other nations for over a decade, with no real reasoning substantial enough to close the base. Although our government has come forward and declared that interrogation methods used on some of the detainees has been unethical and has broken some United States laws. But closing Guantanamo Bay is a task that should not be pursued, because it causes more problems to our countries people, our diplomatic and

As part of the “war on terror,” the US began a revolutionary practice of holding "enemies" in military detention without charge and without according them basic rights. Guantanamo Bay is a notorious United States military prison, known for the frequent mistreatment of its inmates. Hundreds of people have gone in and out of GTMO, but none were afforded the rights granted to regular American prisoners. These inmates have spent years holed up in a secretive compound, where some aren't even cognizant of the charges against them. Furthermore, these detainees have reported incidents of abuse and torture, direct violations of the eighth amendment. Bush appointed officials, like Susan Crawford, have conceded that torture occurred at GTMO, validating claims made by those imprisoned. This controversial detention center is infamous internationally, as a 2005 Amnesty International report called the facility the "Gulag of our times.” The U.S. government opened this base as a holding center for the “world’s most dangerous criminals,” and perpetuates its existence to ensure national security. Guantanamo Bay may not seem relevant to most Americans, but its existence is a blatant violation of the Constitution, and foreshadows more encroachment upon the personal liberties enjoyed by

release and states that they should be encouraged and provided assistance to maintain and establish relationships outside of the prison atmosphere to promote the prisoner’s rehabilitation and best interests of his or her family. In PA prisons they are removing programs from fathers that used to be beneficial. The prisons had a program called read to me its where a father is recorded reading a book to the child on a cd and able to mail it with the book home and it was removed. To follow this and adopt it would be great it may cut down on our younger generation becoming incarcerated so young. It may deterred the child from having the idea of a absent parent as out of sight out of mind. To maintain and establish family ties in prison can even cut back on some of the stressors that a inmate face. The support from a outside family at times is a tremendous help or even greater discharge plan strategy. Furthermore Rule 108, Services and agencies, governmental or otherwise, which assist released prisoners in re-establishing themselves in society shall ensure, so far as is possible and necessary, that released prisoners are provided with appropriate documents and identification papers, have suitable and adequately clothed having in regard to the work to go, are suitably and adequately clothed having regard to the climate and season and have sufficient means to reach their destination and maintain themselves in the period immediately following their release. I’m going to say within

Imagine receiving a life sentence for stealing a radio. Now understand that this is reality for felon Leandro Andrade, due to mandatory minimums and the Three Strikes Law (Alexander, 90). These punishments originated from the War on Drugs, which has contributed to the crackdown on drugs and the influx of prisoners. Another aspect of the convict is also often forgotten - what happens after prisons release felons? The released struggle to reintegrate back into society, after being sheltered from the outside world during their prison term. The connecting factor behind all of these problems is the structure of America’s justice and criminal system, from its inherent racism, to overzealous sentences, to how society handles prisoner reentrance as a whole.

In the beginning of the 21st century, or the early 2000’s, Guantanamo Bay was used to house suspected terrorists that were captured by US forces in Iraq and Afghanistan. The detainment of such prisoners aroused suspicions around the world regarding the constitutionality of the treatment of these prisoners. This was just the beginning of many allegations against the US on the subject.

President Obama called for Guantanamo Bay to be shut down back in 2009. It is now 2015 and Guantanamo Bay is still open and still holding many types of prisoners. Guantanamo Bay mainly holds suspected terrorists, but also holds other types of prisoners. Prisoners being held captive have been imprisoned and have yet to have a trial. In other words, some are just being held captive under suspicion. Would America be better off if Guantanamo Bay was closed and those who have been imprisoned either transferred to another prison or essentially freed?

Guantanamo Bay, though started with good intentions, only highlights America’s negative side. Marine Major General Michael Lehnert, who played a significant role in the opening of Guantanamo, has drastically changed his opinion and said that it, “Validates every negative perception of the U.S.” (Sutton 1). One example of this occurred in 2006, when President Bush justified the use of “physical coercion” (torture) during interrogations (Fetini 1). Some of these torture methods include isolation, beatings, sleep deprivation, and general abuse. Other tactics such as disrespect for Islamic symbols or sexual provocation are used to encourage stress in detainees (Bloche 1). These immoral methods led to an international outcry. It was later remarked that the Cuban territory upon which Guantanamo is located is being used as a “concentration camp” of sorts (Fetini 1). Guantanamo and its unethical values are being recognized by nations around the world, displaying America in a bad light.

The practice of torture by United States officials has become one of the most controversial elements of military history. The debate of its use in gathering intelligence has been particularly prevalent since the Bush administration. Most recently, a detailed and graphic scene of torture was presented in the movie Zero Dark Thirty. Proponents for the use of torture state that it is necessary for intelligence gathering and that ethics should be waved aside. Opponents argue that it is not becoming of American practices and it is not a reliable source for intelligence gathering. The public debates on this issue have forced policy makers and military officials to look at whether or not torture, particularly waterboarding, should be legal. The

Guantanamo Bay, Cuba is originally a naval base that was once used to house detention facilities for Haitian and Cuban refugees fleeing to the United States. It was also used as a refueling station for Navy ships. It was then converted into a high level detention facility to house enemy troops captured in the War on Terror campaign by Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfield. It has three main camps that house the prisoners. These prisoners of war were later referred to as enemy combatants. They were excluded from the prisoner of war statutes of the Geneva Convention because of their involvement in a foreign terrorist organization and therefore earning themselves the title of terrorists. The Guantanamo Bay Detention Center served as the perfect location to send these terrorists. It allowed the United States to strip them of any due process or protection that is provided by US law. Due to its location, being in foreign territory they are only subjected to military law. They are close enough for them to be monitored without interference of intentional agencies or international oversight. Furthermore, the US Government is holding these men without due process because they are deemed too dangerous to be released into the public because of their associations with terrorist organizations and possession of valuable information relating to National Security such as location of key members of a terrorist groups, whereabouts. However, the United States cannot release those