Punishment And Inequality By Bruce Western Essay

The unfortunate truth of incarceration during the era of mass imprisonment is that African Americans are seven times more likely to be incarcerated than whites. Blacks were more likely than whites to go to prison, at least since the 1920’s (Western 2006: 4). By analyzing the rates of prison admission for blacks and whites at different levels of education, it shows that class inequalities in imprisonment increased as the economic status of low-education men deteriorated. Among young black men, particularly those with little schooling, the level of incarceration was increasingly high. So, why is it that young African American men are incarcerated at much higher rates than their counterparts?

This paper discusses three critical issues in the criminal justice system. It touches on the general issues of punishment philosophies, sentence decision making, and prison overcrowding and focused more specifically on the negative effects of each. Highlighted in this informational paper is the interrelated nature of the issues; each issue affects and is affected by the others. Data and information has been gathered from the FBI Uniform Crime Report, the Bureau of Justice Statistics, Amnesty International, the NAACP Legal Defense

The prison population in the United states has increased 500% in thirty years. Since the 1970s social inequality has impacted the American prison system. America has 2.3 million people in prison which is “five times more than England and twelve times more than Japan.” We want to know why our prison population is growing and what are the core reasons. Has our society caused mass incarceration? Is it based on conflict theory or social stratification? Our research will include a comprehensive analysis of sentencing guidelines from the war on drugs , race, and poverty and respectively its impact on mass incarceration. “The United States has the dubious distinction of leading every other nation in both the largest total

In, “The Caging of America”, by Adam Gopnik explains the problems in the in the American criminal justice system focusing more on the prison system. Some of the struggles that Gopnik states in his article are mass incarceration, crime rate, and judges giving long inappropriate sentencings to those with minor crimes. He demonstrates that inmates are getting treated poorly than helping them learn from their actions. Using facts and statistics, Gopnik makes his audience realize that there is an urgent need of change in the American prison system. The main idea of Gopnik’s article is that the prison system needs to improve its sentencing laws because prisons are getting over crowed. Gopnik’s argument is valid because there is a problem in the sentencing laws that has caused a malfunction in the prison system as a whole.

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.”

In his book “Punishment and Inequality in America” Western discusses the underlying racial disparities that have lead to a mass incarceration in the United States. He states that incarceration rates have increased by a substantial amount. The race and class disparities viewed in impromesment are very large and class disparities have grown by a dramatic amount. In his book he argues that an increase in mass incarceration occured due to a significant increase in crime. The increase in mass incarceration can also be correlated with urban street crime that proliferated as joblessness in inner-city communities increased (Western, 2006). He also states that an increase in incarceration rates may be due to the changes in politics and policy which have intensified criminal punishment even though criminal offending did not increase. Although these are substantial reasons as to why incarceration has increased significantly in the US there are many underlying issues. The incarceration rates amongst young black men have increased the most in the United states, black men are more likely to go to prison than white and Hispanic men (Western, 2006). This may be largely due to factors such as unemployment, family instability, and neighborhood disorder which combine to produce especially high rates of violence among young black men in the United States (Western, 2006). A rise in incarceration rates may also be largely due to to increased drug arrests which represent the racial disparity.

The United States is less the 5% of the world population but has almost 25% of the world’s prison population (Coates, 2015; Waldman, 2016). In the last 40 years, the number of American civilians imprisoned by the United States has increased 500%. (Mauer, 2011). However, this explosion in incarceration rates has not been evenly distributed throughout the American population (Waldman, 2016). While one in seventeen White men will be imprisoned in their lifetime, one in sixteen Latino men will face this fate and for Black men, the number is one in three (Mauer,2011). Neither the racial disparity in incarceration nor its scale was accidental (Coates, 2015). The mass incarceration of Black men in the United States was a direct result of the “War

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.

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

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.

In this examination of economic inequality and the experience of punishment, I express how the American justice system fails to accommodate lower class criminals with the standards it equally guarantees to all citizens. Assessing each level of the correction process will allow me to shed light on the struggles that poor convicts face and apply theories which support my analyses. Highlighting the unsuccessful employment of equal due process, I

The past quarter century has seen an enormous growth in the American incarceration rate. Importantly, some scholars have suggested that the rate of prison growth has little to do with the theme of crime itself, but it is the end result of particular U.S. policy choices. Clear (2007) posits that "these policy choices have had well-defined implications for the way prison populations have come to replicate a concentrated occurrence among specified subgroups in the United States population in particular young black men from deprived communities" (p. 49).

When it comes to arrest and incarceration, black men are overrepresented in comparison to Hispanics and whites. Over forty years ago the Civil Rights Act was implemented and racism still continues today due in part to a form of cultural imagery. This structured inequality is evident in the politics of government and all levels of the criminal justice system. The very system that is to be fair has been found to be racially disparate in the treatment of blacks. The causes and existence of this state has been researched for over the last twenty years as to it why does it exist, what are the consequences and how to correct it.

American prison systems encompass all three spheres of criminal justice: law enforcement, judiciary, corrections. Within this system, a massive problem exists. America is known as the “mass incarceration nation” (Hamilton, 2014, p. 1271). Comparatively, the United States encompasses the majority of global prisoners, yet the population is nowhere near that proportion. Just how “free and equal” is this system? Since Gideon v. Wainwright, the racial divide in the criminal justice system has grown, which is contradictory to its intentions. The American criminal justice system has failed to provide the justice and protections it promises. There are many injustices caused by the mass incarceration of American citizens, especially those of minority descent. More harm is done by incarceration to the individual, their community, and the nation, than if other forms of justice were used. The criminal justice system is divided, with racial and income disparities defining the nation in way never intended.

Statistics show that throughout American history, African American’s incarceration rates have always been higher than white American’s incarceration rates. The actual incarceration rate in America started dramatically increasing during the 1970’s and the US continues to be the country with the highest incarceration rate. To get a sense of just how much it has grown, in 2011 the prison population was at more than two million compared to 300,00 in 1970. Just in 2009 alone, the incarceration rate of African Americans was 3,119 per 100,000 Americans, compared to the rate of white Americans which was only 487 per 100,000 Americans.2 The gap is huge, especially since white American incarceration rate wasn’t even close to being in the thousands and this statistic makes the disparity glaring. The future and predictions aren’t looking any better either, in 2001 the Bureau of Justice