The Importance Of Mass Incarceration

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 is a problem around the world, but nowhere else is it more plague than the United States of America, which has one-fourth of its population locked up behind bars. The cause for this problem in the U.S. can be blamed on many things, the "war on drug", private prison facility, tough laws, and mandatory sentencing. However, there are programs that are in place to help reduce the number of individuals in prison, like the "Texas experiment (Justice reinvestment)", and other rehabilitation programs. But those efforts alone cant fix the problem. To decrease the mass incarceration in the U.S. a new approach must be taken, such as; eliminate prison time for low-level crimes, "the three-strike law”, expand parole and probation, and reform private prison.

Mass Incarceration is a predicament in the U.S. because in the land of the free, there are more than two million people in prison. Prisons are homes to the majority of twenty-two percent of the U.S. population. The U.S. has a massive incarceration rate, seven hundred and sixteen per every one hundred thousand. The U.S. makes five percent of the world’s population and the third country in which most people live in but number one incarcerating humans.

How? Political leaders using this topic as talking point to gain the minority vote has to put their money where their mouth is and be held accountable when there is a stagnation of action and policies are not implemented to rectify the prison problem. Throughout the media, there is this rhetoric that both sides of the political aisle want to do something about this issue. However, no one has pulled the trigger. States that claim mass incarceration is costly should be allocating more resources to public defenders. This would balance out the adversarial process. The money can be used to hire more public defenders to lighten the case load, and this would

1. “Collateral consequences” refers to all related and seemingly unintended consequences of something. What are the collateral consequences of mass incarceration, and how do they contribute to inequality? (Chapter 33 Bryan L. Sykes and Becky Pettit: “Mass Incarceration and Family Life” In Other Words: Virginia E. Rutter: “Doing Time = Doing Gender” (Girl w/ Pen!))

Many people are in prison today because of unjust sentencing legislation such as mandatory sentencing laws, which “... often make no distinction between, say, armed

Because the current polices on crime in society obviously do not work and fail to deter the criminal offender form committing further offenses but instead of automatically sentencing the drug offender to long prison sentences that does not serve the inmate, society, or the taxpayer. Instead the focus should be on requiring the drug addicted offender to attend mandatory substance abuse treatment as well as other rehabilitative processes that would enable the drug offender to successfully reintegrate back into society as well as

Prison’s were established a long time ago to try to put an end to the rapidly increasing crime rate, however over time we are seeing the effectiveness of the most prisons decreasing. As a result of this epidemic, prisons have a higher recidivism rate and over 40 percents are currently operating over maximum capacity (Holder.) Through different types of research, we are finding out that our prison systems are no longer effective and there is a serious need for improvement. The United States has only 5 percent of the world’s population, yet we incarcerate almost ¼ of the worlds prisoners (Holder.)

America has been a land for the free since it became a dream place for people to come and have a successful life. In this case, America hasn’t been as grateful to people. They have more people in jail than any other country in the world and it’s still increasing. This main cause called mass incarceration brought America to the leading country that is incarcerating people at a high rate mainly sending those of color behind bars as said in web source A.C.L.U. This brings a lot of issues into a great nation such as the U.S.A. in a place where people should be proud to live in and represent. The topic of mass incarceration hasn’t been a major issue that politician’s really talk about. As well as the politician’s the people haven’t taken much actions to change it. Mass incarceration brings many troubles for America to deal with besides the other countless issues it has as a nation. The causes of mass incarceration are many, but the main important are overcrowded prisons, discrimination to criminals after jail, and imprisoning many people for long time periods based on small offenses that they have done. The causes of mass incarceration continue to affect the nation greatly as there are more people going behind bars at a high rate. Since the 1980’s there has been an increase of incarceration. It all started with the use of cocaine in the 1980’s that made “Policies that greatly excaberated racial disperities in incarceration rates… President Ronald Reagan officially announced the

In the United States incarceration is inevitable for most americans, this dilemma has created mass incarceration throughout the country. "Almost 30 years ago there were over

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.

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 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.

Mass incarceration is a large-scale problem that has emerged in recent decades. The reason for this lies in new laws and policies that crackdown on drug-related offenses. Since these policies have taken effect, the percent of people in prisons and jails has grown by 500% (The Sentencing Project). The 2015 population of inmates in either prison or jail was 2,173,800, this makes the United States the world leader in number of incarcerated people (The Sentencing Project). However, the rise in jail and prison populations has not spanned equally among races. The population of prisoners in 2015 was 1,476,847, with 523,000 of those prisoners being African American (The Sentencing Project). African Americans make up 13% of the population in the United

Mass Incarceration is a growing dilemma in the United States that populates our prisons at an alarming rate. Michelle Alexander is a professor at Ohio State University and a graduate of Stanford law school. She states in her award winning book, The new Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness “In less than thirty years, the U.S. penal population exploded from around 300,000 to more than 2 million” (Alexander, 6). These young men and women are unable to afford a decent lawyer because they come from such a poverty-stricken background. Men and women are at a financial disadvantage in our justice system. Lawyers and attorneys cost a fortune and most people can just simply not afford them. Others plead to their charges because