Rikers Island Argumentative Essay

How far is too far? Tom Sawyer felt lonely, unwanted, and irrelevant. Because of his feelings he persuaded his friends, Joe and Huck, to join him in running away to become sailors for a few days, without telling any authorities. Tom's mischievous plan started as a light-hearted joke, but as time wore on the whole town was consumed with fear. The boys received praise from the kids in town when they finally returned, but caused their guardians a great amount of heat ache. Everyone agrees that Tom constantly performed naughty actions and rebelled against any rules that were set before him. But some believe running away without telling anyone was perfectly unacceptable. I feel that Tom should not have run away to become a sailor because

For over centuries, the only form of punishment and discouragement for humans is through the prison system. Because of this, these humans or inmates, are sentenced to spend a significant part of their life in a confined, small room. With that being said, the prison life can leave a remarkable toll on the inmates life in many different categories. The first and arguably most important comes in the form of mental health. Living in prison with have a great impact on the psychological part of your life. For example, The prison life is a very much different way of life than what us “normal” humans are accustomed to living in our society. Once that inmate takes their first step inside their new society, their whole mindset on how to live and communicate changes. The inmate’s psychological beliefs about what is right and wrong are in questioned as well as everything else they learned in the outside world. In a way, prison is a never ending mind game you are playing against yourself with no chance of wining. Other than the mental aspect of prison, family plays a very important role in an inmate’s sentence. Family can be the “make it or break it” deal for a lot of inmates. It is often said that “when a person gets sentenced to prison, the whole family serves the sentence.” Well, for many inmates that is the exact case. While that prisoner serves their time behind bars, their family is on the outside waiting in anticipation for their loved ones to be released. In a way, the families

Prison staff is now dealing with a less stable and sane person than they originally brought into prison. At this point, any aggravation can push an inmate over the edge which can lead to a riot in seconds.

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.

Minorities remain overrepresented in crime, offending, victimization, and all stages of the criminal justice process especially confinement. Overrepresentation alludes to a situation in which a greater part of a particular group is present at various stages within the justice system than would be expected based on its part in the general population (Rosich, 2007). Minorities have always had a larger population in the prison system and after the Civil War they were overrepresented in American prison. There are a few reasons as to why races are disproportionately which are denial of jobs, poverty, and it is felt that police have bias and

Racial disparity in the correctional population refers to the difference in the number of minorities versus whites represented inside institutions. “The American Correctional Association acknowledges that racial disparity exists within adult and juvenile detention and correctional systems. This contributes to the perception of unfairness and injustice in the justice system ("ACA Policies and," 2004).” “Blacks comprise 13% of the national population, but 30% of people arrested, 41% of people in jail, and 49% of those in prison. Nationwide, blacks are incarcerated at 8.2 times the rate of whites (Human Rights Watch, 2000).” This difference in proportionality does not necessarily

In the prison system today, there has been an explosion of minorities being incarcerated for offenses that may not have gotten jail time if they had not been of a certain race. Although the overall numbers of incarcerations may have dropped just slightly for the first time in over 35 years, the amount of inmates

America has a major problem with overcrowding in its prisons, and action needs to be taken. Since 1970, the inmate population in the United States has increased over 700%, far greater than the general population as a whole. This has led to declining quality of life within the prison system including 8th Amendment violations and it represents a needless drain on state finances. There is simply no value in keeping non-violent convicts in the prison system, sometimes for years. The costs are high, and there is very little benefit to America. The justice system needs to be overhauled to relieve the massive crowding in US prisons.

Out of all of the topics discussed in Module 5, Rivers Island had caught my attention. To the point that I decided to do my own extensive research on the topic. Jails in our criminal justice system are known to be corrupt and ruthless. After watching the video about Rikers Island, it concluded how corrupt our system is and why there is a desperate need for change. Rikers Island is the pure example of what most people would think every jail in America is like. The media has altered the vision of how jail and prison is like in America, but its crazy how Rikers Island is the exact image of the corruption.

In New York, 2010, Kalief Browder was arrested for allegedly committing a robbery that he said he did not commit. However, he was still charged with robbery, grand larceny, and assault. The judge set bail at three thousand dollars, an amount that Browder’s family could not pay and unfortunately, he was sent to Rikers Island where he spent over a thousand days. He was assaulted by officers, inmates, and was also constantly sent to solitary confinement for nearly two years during his time at Rikers Island (Gonnerman, 2014). Kalief Browder attempted suicide many times when he was in solitary confinement. After being released, he tried to get back on his feet within society. His case was heard by many people, including Barack Obama, Jay Z, and other well-known individuals. All of them spoke about the injustice Browder faced. However, on June 06, 2015, Browder committed suicide (Gonnerman, 2015). Many people believed that the criminal justice system failed Browder. Unfortunately, this is not the only case in which the outcome was heartbreaking.

Incarceration rates are a definite proof that racial discrimination occurs. “Incarceration rates in the United States have risen sharply since 1980”, stated Filip Spagnoli, “the racial distribution of inmates in the U.S. is highly negative for black Americans. Whereas they only make up 12% of the total U.S. population, they represent more than 40% of inmates”

The minimum security is federal prison camps adjacent to other federal prisons near military bases. Male prisoners who need only minimum security are set up in camps and those who will be transitioned [Passive voice] back into society and served their sentence will be set-up in a halfway house.

“The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude.” – US Constitution (Amendment XV). The constitution states that every United States citizen should have the right to vote so why shouldn’t felons get the right to vote after they have served their time and finished their punishment. One of the main goals of prisons and jails is rehabilitation so if felons are given the right to vote then they would get a chance to start over and become a better member of society.

There have been various rumours on Jett’s sexual orientation. Jett was accused by some sources of being a lesbian. Other sources claim that Jett is bisexual. However, to this day, Jett has not made those claims official. In an interview with HuffPost Live, a former member in The Runaways Lita Ford revealed that she had quit The Runaways for a short while after she found out that three of her bandmates (Joan Jett, Cherie Currie, and Sandy West) had sexual preferences towards women. She also accused Joan Jett and Cherie Currie of ‘messing around’. Lita Ford, at the age of 16, had not been exposed to the LGBT, she had no knowledge of the community “I didn’t know anything about [homosexuality], and it was still in the closet. Nobody [back then]

American prisons have a disparity of minority inmate population, and one of the reasons this is so is because of the manner the judicial system operates. The investigator chose this topic because there are many African Americans and Hispanics that have been incarcerated for crimes they committed, as well as for crimes they didn’t commit, and because of their cultural background they were given severer sentencing. After performing the research the investigator found that many factors played a big part in the incarceration of minorities that included, ethnicity and gender. Although there is a high crime rate in minority areas, there are more