The Gory State of the South Bronx
An area associated with lots of social problems, with over half of the population living below the poverty line, the South Bronx has become a community that people associate with prostitution, crime, and poverty. With two (2) juvenile detention centers, fifteen (15) waste transfer stations, and four (4) jails, the plan of the government to build a new jail in Hunts Point is most strange and unwelcome at that. “The city’s Economic Development Corporation is negotiating with Oak Point Energy to purchase a 28-acre parcel of former industrial land in the Hunts Point section of the South Bronx to be used for a new detention center to relieve overcrowding on Rikers Island.” The jail would cost $375 million, an amount of money that could be put into development projects for the community. The construction of this jail would mean the allocation of funds to non-pressing needs of the society. Against all odds, the wish of all concerned individuals is that the jail plan is stopped. However, the plan has drawn strong opposition from individuals and community groups.
For too long, Hunts Point has suffered from deprivation, supported by the state of affairs in the area. With a majority of colored people in the area, it has been prone to institutional and economical racism/segregation. The community is familiar to accepting what other communities have rejected. The jail to be designed is disguised under a reason that the Bronx has this only available space in the City to house a large prison and that the jail would bring the inmates closer to their families and relatives while creating a larger space to accommodate inmates. In the United States today, there are 2,319,258 inmates thereby making it the country ...
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... communities could say “Not in my backyard!” then there is absolutely no reason why the Hunts Point community can not say that this time-at least this once. Asthma and obesity are common in the area, the community is one of the poorest (not in New York State alone) but in the whole of the United States. This sends a message to other states about New York. Although Hew York could be “The Capital of The World,” it definitely has some areas that have to be looked into. Such an environment is not suitable for maximum residence but as a result of poverty and racism, people reside in areas with 15 transfer stations, a fertilizer company, a Con Ed plant, and two juvenile correctional centers. This should not be the case. A lot of ways are feasible as a way of averting this impending danger and out burst. Once again, instead if tackling the symptoms let the cause be tackled.
One of the biggest issues with jails and prisons is how crowded they are. In jails and prisons, they are way too over populated in the number of inmates that they can hold. Drugs are the main cause of jails and prisons being way overcrowded. I do not agree with how overcrowded the jails and prisons are. Morgan showed the result of overcrowded jails and prisons. Jails and prisons are way to over populated so therefor, inmates have to sleep on floors or find a spot to rest, because there are not enough beds to hold the number of inmates that are committed into the prisons and jails anymore. I also disagree with how their running their disciplinary strategies because if they did a better job, then two of three prisoners would not be back to jail shortly after leaving. What they do on the inside should help to where more inmates will not be back after being released from jail or
In the Brainology article, professor Carol Dweck put forward two mindsets: fixed mindset and growth mindset. That is an educational project that was instituted by Carol Dweck and made her famous for. That is talking about transforming student’s motivation to learn found out that people have fixed mindset or growth mindset all have profound effects on their motivation, learning and school achievement. From this article, this is particularly designed to help students break all boundaries and limits set by negative learning perspectives, while also instilling self-confidence is fixed, that each person has a certain amount and we call this a fixed mindset. A fixed mindset makes challenges threatening for students, and it makes mistakes and failures
Shockingly, there seem to be a few people who actually profits from keeping people in jails. The practice of mass incarceration who most see as a major problem in the United States of America is actually beneficial to some. The prison system in the United States who was create to keep dangerous criminals at bay is now a major source of profit for some private corporations. John W. Whitehead, attorney and president of the Rutherford Institute writes that, “ the flawed yet retributive American “system of justice” is being replaced by an even more flawed and insidious form of mass punishment based upon profit and expediency.” Some blame the war on drugs as the main reason for the mass incarceration; others blame racism. Although those components do play a major role in the affair, a closer look at at the mastermind behind the prison industrial complex suggest that the privatization of the prison system has become the main reason why mass incarceration exist so forcefully in the United States and is a crime against the people of the people of
Prior to taking it, I was unaware that the greatest difference in life expectancy observed between counties in the U.S. was 15 years. I was amazed that simply being born in a different zip code could affect life expectancy so greatly. This profoundly supports the conclusion environment affects health. Health expert Michael Marmot realized that a subway ride from an impoverished African American neighborhood to an affluent white suburb in Washington D.C. saw an average increased life expectancy of a year and a half for every mile traveled, totaling up to twenty years. We cannot control the neighborhood we are born into, and to see that such an uncontrollable factor can affect longevity so greatly in an industrialized nation, like the U.S., is astonishing (“Health equity quiz”, 2008). I was particularly amazed that in west Los Angeles, white neighborhoods have nearly 19 times as much green space as Black and Latino neighborhoods. The white neighborhoods have nearly 31.8 acres of park space for every 1,000 people, while the minority neighborhoods only have 1.7 acres of park space (“Health equity quiz”, 2008). Traveling in Las Vegas, parks can be found in nearly every area. Although there are probably more parks in wealthier areas, we do not see such a great discrepancy in our numbers-- or so it appears. To see that such a heavily populated city, like Los Angeles, treats residents so disproportionately was
In todays society the United States has the highest incarceration rate in the world. This high incarceration rate is due to the growing phenomena known as mass incarceration. This phenomenon has led to massive increase of people being placed in prison and the amount of money being used for these prisons. The book, Race to Incarcerate by Marc Mauer, focuses on mass incarceration as our default social policy because of the weak welfare state in the U.S. In the book Mauer discusses the causes and the problems with this policy.
The past two decades have engendered a very serious and historic shift in the utilization of confinement within the United States. In 1980, there were less than five hundred thousand people confined in the nation’s prisons and jails. Today we have approximately two million and the numbers are still elevating. We are spending over thirty five billion annually on corrections while many other regime accommodations for education, health
According to statistics since the early 1970’s there has been a 500% increase in the number of people being incarcerated with an average total of 2.2 million people behind bars. The increase in rate of people being incarcerated has also brought about an increasingly disproportionate racial composition. The jails and prisons have a high rate of African Americans incarcerated with an average of 900,000 out of the 2.2 million incarcerateed being African American. According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics 1 in 6 African American males has been incarcerated at some point in time as of the year 2001.
Gentrification is the keystone for the progression of the basic standards of living in urban environments. A prerequisite for the advancement of urban areas is an improvement of housing, dining, and general social services. One of the most revered and illustrious examples of gentrification in an urban setting is New York City. New York City’s gentrification projects are seen as a model for gentrification for not only America, but also the rest of the world. Gentrification in an urban setting is much more complex and has deeper ramifications than seen at face value. With changes in housing, modifications to the quality of life in the surrounding area must be considered as well. Constant lifestyle changes in a community can push out life-time
For our group community assessment, we assessed the neighbourhood of Moss Park. Throughout our assessment at Moss Park, we noted many of the community’s characteristics including physical environment, resources available, strengths and weaknesses etc… Moss Park is a neighbourhood located in downtown Toronto, the area is mainly comprised of worn-out buildings and houses with a satisfactory number of resources including a public library, school, health care centers, pharmacies etc… During the assessment of this neighbourhood we noticed that the physical environment was contaminated with the presence of garbage on the streets and in residential areas. As we were walking through this area during our assessment, we noticed a strong smell of cigarette smoke in many areas on the streets and in some residential areas. We also observed many people smoking in the area which creates a harmful environment of second-hand smoke. Lastly, we noted th...
There are inequalities in the education system, poverty and stereotypes, which play a major role in who gets incarcerated; and studies show that students of color receive harsher punishments than white students who engage in the same conduct. New York City has initiated steps to reduce detention by implementing alternative. These alternatives will ensure that youth receive the “proper level of supervision, reduce detention populations, save money because it costs millions of dollars to run a detention facility, and cut youth crime and recidivism rates. “ To touch base on recidivism rates, the system is wasteful and racially biased because detention center don’t produce a so-called “corrected individual.” It alternatively produce delinquents by “imposing violent constraints on its inmates…” and therefore, does not help stop recidivism. Recidivism can be defined as “a tendency to relapse into a previous co...
There are two mindsets growth or fixed. She argues that there is only two mindsets growth or fixed, I agree because these two mindsets are the most common ones in students. This takes me back to Dweck, Carol S. “Brainology”: Transforming Students’ Motivation to Learn. In this article students with growth mindsets cares more about their education rather than how they look. Students with fixed mindsets cared about how smart they will appear and they would reject learning opportunities because they thought intelligence would have to come naturally to them. I agree with what she says, there are only two mindsets. The reason I agree is because I was both mindsets, well now I’m only one. But before I was a fixed mindset and what I mean by that is sometimes I would feel dumb and I wouldn’t even care anymore about my studies. Till I noticed that the way I was going wasn’t going to
In the United States, there are about 500 prisoners for every 100,000 residents. So, it is no surprise that our country has the highest incarceration rate in the world. In my opinion, this statistic would be lower if the prisons were tougher, making the prisoners scared to come back. The punishments used in our country’s prisons today are far more lenient than they used to be. In this paper, I will discuss what prison should be like, the goals of prison, and the differences between two American prison models (Pennsylvania and Auburn) and their benefits and drawbacks. This paper will also explain which model was more successful and why.
America locks up five times more of its' population than any other nation in the world. Due to prison overcrowding, prisoners are currently sleeping on floors, in tents, in converted broom closets and gymnasiums, or even in double or triple bunks in cells, which were designed for one inmate. Why is this happening? The U.S. Judicial System has become so succumbed to the ideal that Imprisonment is the most visibly form of punishment. The current structure of this system is failing terribly. To take people, strip them of their possessions and privacy, expose them to violence on a daily basis, restrict their quality of life to a 5x7ft cell, and deprive them of any meaning to live. This scenario is a standard form of punishment for violent offenders, although not suitable for nonviolent offenders.
Firstly, in order to gain a better understanding of the problems that plague our correctional system we must fully understand the enormous overcrowding problem that exists in the majority of state and federal prisons. Since 1980 the prison population has quadrupled and only the numbers continue to rise (Schmalleger, 2012).To help reduce the overcrowding problem within our prisons, taxpayers have funded 102 new correctional facilities since 1980 (Shelden, 1999).... ... middle of paper ... ... Offenders that are incarcerated within the prison quickly find a group of people commonly associated with their ethnic groups to establish a rapport with.
Individuals view and react differently to situations and challenges in life, the direct effect of having a Fixed mindset or a Growth mindset will coordinate our response . The Fixed mindset is believing our qualities are unchangeable and that the genes we are born with are all that can accomplish, people with the Fixed mindset view a situation or challenge as a negative and as a direct measure of their competence and worth.