The Pros And Cons Of Incarceration

The number of prisoners in United States prisons has increased and are still growing day-by-day. The Sentencing Project, an organization that fights for a fair and effective U.S. justice system by promoting reforms in sentencing policy, addresses unjust racial disparities and practices in its article “Trends in U.S. Corrections.” They write, “The United States is the world's leader in incarceration with 2.2 million people currently in the nation's prisons and jails — a 500% increase over the last forty years ”(The Sentencing Project 1). According to The Sentencing Project statistics, the number of prisoners has dramatically increased in the past four decades,

Mass incarceration brought a bigger issue than people being locked up in jail. After people were released from jail they would have to go to court and figure out their situation was, figure out what would happen to then when they go back home. For those that lived in public housing and their name was the one that was on the contract they were forced to leave the house, If the individual was a parent and they were the only parent that the kids had; the parents would lose their kids and be homeless. Because the individual has been to jail and now is homeless they are no longer eligible for a job because of their criminal records. Not only are these individuals no longer eligible for housing or jobs they also can’t have custody of their kids and

The United States accounts for 5% of the world population, but the nation’s prison population makes up 25% of the world’s (Nagin, 2014). African Americans comprise the largest percent of the United States prison population because they have the highest incarceration rate compared to other races. This essay will argue that African Americans are incarcerated at a higher rate than Caucasians. Proven by statistical data, there are grounds to establish that the racial disparity in incarceration rates is a social problem. To address this social problem, public policy should be implemented by the government at the state level.

Edwin Gutierrez Engl 1302 Professor C. Robinson 10/11/2017 Essay 1 Is what we believe only an illusion? Universally, we covet our ideologies with an intent to serve us beneficially, yet they live in a realm intangible by man. The American incarceration system is unique as it proposes peace, safety, justice and security, yet it's not executed in a good way. Today, America incarcerates a vast fraction of its population, and African Americans are seemingly the target for this strategist epidemic. African Americans are arrested at more than five times the rate of whites.

Our prison systems are outrageous. Dealing with false sentencing, death penalty, rules and regulations, inmates, well-being, and how their being treated in these prisons. Yes, they are criminals, but they are not supposed to be beat and uncared for in these places, they are supposed to be there serving time for the crimes they have committed.

The United States is home to five percent of the world population, but 25 percent of the world’s prisoner. There must be a change to the current prison system which is doing more harm than good in American society and must be reformed. Reasons for this claim are that American prisons are too overcrowded with inmates, which creates a dangerous and unhuman environment. The cost to run a prison has gotten too expensive for tax payer pockets, and lastly the prison system is more as a punishment instead of rehabilitation with about sixteen percent of inmates most serious offence being drug charges. Prisons fall short of reforming criminals and the government is obligated to completely reform the prison systems in the United States.

Incarceration affects everyone. The US is known to have one of the highest incarceration rates. It's to a point where every single American has a family member in jail or prison. And based on the way our jail system works, the impacts it leaves on prisoners, loved ones, and society aren't positive. Jail is used as a punishment, rather than a way to help inmates better and prevent future crimes. They leave psychological impacts, social impacts, and economic impacts on all of us. Incarceration in the United States has various controversies, but it is discernable that it is unjust and unethical because of the negative impacts it leaves and must be addressed by more effective reform systems.

Ostensibly, the motive for incarceration appears to be justice. However, where profit exists, so does deception. “…Statistics are now showing that locking people up for profit is overriding the concept of jailing people in the name of justice” (Magee). Our prison system has transformed from a rehabilitation program to a corporate, profit machine. Prisoners are no longer perceived as inmates serving their time and recuperating, but rather bank accounts that can be extorted for every penny by these private prison corporations. Increasing sentencing and lengthening time served benefits the prison, not the inmate. It is despicable to jail non-violent criminals, whom would normally receive probation, to line the pockets of private prisons and

America loves to be number one, but sometimes being number one isn’t good thing. The most problematic chart that America tops is that of incarceration rate. According to the Prison Policy Initiative, 693 out of every 100,000 people in the United States are incarcerated. For perspective, out of all the founding members of NATO, the United Kingdom is in second place behind the US with an incarceration rate of 145 per 100,000 people. The US doesn’t just hold the lead, she’s lapping her peers in Western society. This startling statistic is the result of decades of bad policy throughout all levels of government.

America has the largest amount of people incarcerated in the world. Due to the high numbers of incarceration, overcrowding has become a financial burden. Elderly and terminally ill are a major cause of the overpopulation. Everyone involved with the inmate population took a step back to analysis ways of lowering the population of prisoners. After much debate and gathering of facts official think it can be solved with pardons to the elderly inmates along with some terminally ill. Readers will understand how the decision were made for early release and the programs used after release.

"Mass incarceration makes our country worse off and we need to do something about it."(LoBianco 2015).There have been criminals since the beginning of time, the crime rate seems to increase with every year. Criminals do not have a certain agenda or a race/ethnicity. Although in today’s times, African Americans and Latino Americans have been the target of the cruel and unjust criminal justice system. The criminal justice system at times does not stand to be right within many of minorities’ communities when they are being attacked often and not treated fairly. The history of criminal injustice reaches as far back as slavery when slaves were beaten to death just for looking at a Caucasian woman. Although progress has been made, America still has a long way to go. The situation of killings or beatings of minority individual’s death and aggressors not facing any consequences has to change. The United States is stagnant in many cases in the criminal justice system. In cases Blacks and Latinos have to deal with harsh tribulations and endure hardships because of the criminal justice system. The harsh realities of the criminal justice system toward minorities are based on racial stereotyping and result in unfounded criminal charges, police brutality, and never getting the justice that is deserved. According to Michigan law program in law series, they conducted a study in which sample is limited to males because racial disparity patterns differ by gender, and those affecting black males are of particular policy importance. Black men in the U.S. are incarcerated at a rate over six times that of White men and over ten times that of Black women, and men make up over 80% of federal defendant in the sample period. Using both regression methods and a semi-parametric reweighting approach, we find that black defendants face significantly more severe charges than whites even after controlling for criminal behavior (arrest offense, multiple-defendant case

To reform prison systems in the United States certain inmates of non violent offense should be treated as a regular citizen with certain restrictions. Open prison does sound like the system America needs. Prisoners need more productivity and normalization to be able to transition back into society.

Approximately 12–13% of the American population are African-American, but they make up 35% of jail inmates, and 37% of prison inmates of the 2.2 million male inmates as of 2014. How is it that 13% of our population makes up 35% of our jail inmates. How can this minority group have such high statistics? This statistic proves how corrupt our judicial system is. The

Efforts to reform the prison system and make it less racist, for example, have been enacted and have enjoyed some measure of success in a similar fashion as efforts to reduce racism in other societal institutions have (Walker, 2006, p. 251-252). At the same time, studies have shown that the criminal justice system tends to punish crimes committed by professionals and people from upper classes at a lower rate than those committed by those who come from more limited economic backgrounds (Walker, 2006, p. 250). Both instances also point to the fact that the criminal justice system, criminals, and prisons do not operate in a vacuum outside of the larger dynamics of

The second journal was released on July 29, 2015. President Obama’s administration staff is working to end a policy that has prohibited inmates to receive federal grant funding been in force for over twenty years. Secretary Arne Duncan and Attorney General Loretta Lynch work to restore a program for low income students. The aid will enable inmates to develop more knowledge and trades so they can get jobs to provide for their families. The purpose of the program is to rehabilitate inmates so they may have a greater chance to stay in the workforce and become contributing members of the society in fact, inmates who participated in the program were forty three percent less likely to return to prison in three years opposed to those who did not participate.