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
Families are often forced to choose between supporting an incarcerated loved one and meeting basic needs for their families and themselves. For many families the loss of income from the relative who goes to jail or prison results in deep poverty and can last for generations to come. Alongside physical separation, the
Human Trafficking is a universal issue that is still currently happening today. It is a major crime that essentially lets someone take illegal custody of another human’s rights and freedoms. The impacts of human trafficking are crucial and nerve-racking. Victims of such crimes most likely suffer from injuries physically and mentally, abusive behavior, rape, death threats, and life taking. Human Trafficking undermines the safety and security of people and their lives (TIP, 2007). People who are desperate for money and would do anything for little amounts of money would either do drug and gun dealing, or human trafficking. Human Trafficking is the fastest growing business in the world. The number of current slaves in America is less than half of what the number of identified humans who are trafficked (HJHP, 2012).
The New Jim Crow is the direct consequences of War on Drug. That aimed at reducing, preventing and eradicate drug usage in America through punitive means. The effect of the war on drug policies returned de jure discrimination, denied African Americans justice and undermined the rule of law by altering the criminal justice system in ways that deprive African Americans civil rights and citizenship. In the “New Jim Crow” Alexandra argues that the effects of the drug war policies are not unattended consequences but coordinated by designed to deny African Americans opportunity to gain wealth, excluded from gaining employment and exercise civil right through mass incarceration and felony conviction.
Prisons and correctional facilities in the United States have changed from rehabilitating people to housing inmates and creating breeding grounds for more violence. Many local, state, and federal prisons and correctional facilities are becoming more and more overcrowded each year. If the Department of Corrections (DOC) wants to stop having repeat offenders and decrease the volume of inmates entering the criminal justice system, current regulations and programs need to undergo alteration. Actions pushed by attorneys and judges, in conjunction current prison life (including solitary confinement), have intertwined to result in mass incarceration. However, prisoner reentry programs haven’t fully impacted positively to help the inmate assimilate back into society. These alterations can help save the Department of Corrections (DOC) money, decrease the inmate population, and most of all, help rehabilitate them. After inmates are charged with a crime, they go through the judicial system (Due Process) and meet with the prosecutor to discuss sentencing.
The United States of America has the world’s highest incarceration rates, for several reasons. The United States of America doesn’t necessarily possess any unique strict laws in comparison to other countries of the world, yet we still have the highest incarceration rate in the world. More federal level and state level prisons are built in order to control and hold more prisoners because most are reaching its full capacity. The United States of America’s “crime rates” increased about 40 years ago when there became a new focus in the areas of crime. The President of the United States of America at the time Richard Nixon used the term “a war on drugs” in order to shed light on public health due to substance abuse. Initially, these policies created
Land of the Unfree: Mass Incarceration and Its Unjust Effects on Those Subjected To It and American Taxpayers
One policy one could examine to see its implications on incarceration rates in the United States is the “War on Drugs.” This war has taken place since the Nixon administration in the 1970s, and aims to eliminate the possession, importation, and solicitation of illegal substances. This war has multiple fronts in which people are currently fighting, but the domestic theatre of war is a culprit for this rise of incarceration rates. Bobo and Thompson examined this phenomenon and found, “rapid increase in incarceration rates can be traced to the "War on Drugs" and associated sentencing practices” (451). The “War on Drugs” can be seen taking place in predominately urban impoverished African-American communities. As a result, more African-Americans are being arrested for drug crimes, whether they be petty possession misdemeanor crimes or more serious felony solicitation of illegal substance crimes. Further, since these areas are more impoverished, individuals will look for other ways in order to generate income in order to support themselves and their
Opponents to mass incarceration like Michelle Alexander have called it the “New Jim Crow”, a social institution aimed at limiting the rights of African Americans. Upon their release criminals are legally denied the right to vote, excluded from juries, and placed in a position of subordination. Others would suggest that, “cultural shifts, political realignments, changes in job prospects for low-skilled men, and perhaps most importantly, legal changes” have led to the severe increase and absolute disparity in the rates of black imprisonment over the late 20th and early 21st centuries. One thing is certain, mass incarceration would be justifiable if crime decreased but that is just not the case. Evidence has shown that the benefits of mass imprisonment in reducing crime have diminished over time and incarceration is now a much less effective method for crime control than it was before the 1990s. Due to factual evidence of high rates racial disparity in imprisonment, mass incarceration can be seen as a significant generator of social inequality. The history and the study of mass incarceration is important because it defines us as a society just like slavery and Jim Crow once
The United States has been making the transition from welfare to workfare to prisonfare very rapidly. As the government continues to get rid of public assistance and force more restrictions on those who receive, it people are forced to work multiple low-paying jobs at the same time just to stay afloat. When these jobs are unavailable people turn to crime or homelessness. Crime and homelessness (though we call it vagrancy) are both crimes in the current American society. Committing either of these crimes or countless others pushes people, especially the poor, into prison creating what Loic Waquant calls “prisonfare” in his book Punishing the Poor. The cycle of workfare to prisonfare and back catches millions of American citizens and refuses
The number of Americans that are in prison has elevated to levels that have never been seen before. Prisons in the US have always been crowded ever since the first prison was invented (Jacobs and Angelos 101). The first prison in the US was the Walnut Street Jail that was built in Philadelphia in 1773, and later closed in the 1830’s due to overcrowding and dirty conditions (Jacobs and Angelos 101). The prison system in modern US history has faced many downfalls due to prison overcrowding. Many private prison owners argue that the more inmates in a prison the more money they could make. In my opinion the argument of making more money from inmates in prisons is completely unconstitutional. If the private prisons are only interested in making
There Are more people in the world locked up here, in the land of the free, in the 1970 we became an era in which has been defined as this term, "Mass Incarceration", The United States now has the highest rates of incarceration in the world, and today we have a prison population of 2.3.
African Americans are mostly affected by mass incarceration. African Americans now constitute nearly 1 million of the total 2.3 million incarcerated population. African Americans are incarcerated at nearly six times the rate of white, it is projected that one in every three African Americans birth are expected to go to prison. "The consequences for black men have radiated out to their families. By 2000, more than 1 million black children had a father in jail or prison"(Coates pg.2). Men going to prison at such a high rates has left many women to fend for themselves. As of 2007 almost 809,800 men is incarcerated and have children leaving women no choice but to go to the government for assistance. many believe if the male incarceration rate wasn 't so high their would be less people on
The most problematic conclusion about Mass Incarceration, whatever the causes or practices, is that currently America has had the highest national prison rates in the world; furthermore, the rates of minorities (particularly African Americans) are extraordinarily disproportionate to the rates of incarcerated Caucasians. Despite the overall rise in incarceration rates since the 1980s, the crime rates have not been reduced as would be expected. Researchers, activists, and politicians alike are now taking a closer look at Mass Incarceration and how it affects society on a larger scale. The purpose of this paper is to examine the anatomy of Mass Incarceration for a better understanding of its importance as a dominant social issue and its ultimate relation to practice of social work. More specifically the populations affected by mass incarceration and the consequences implacable to social justice. The context of historical perspectives on mass incarceration will be analyzed as well as insight to the current social welfare policies on the
...s locked up. Money owed for various things—such as credit cards, auto loans, mortgages, child support, taxes, and more—will be waiting on the outside world whether an ex-convict is ready for them or not. In addition, most ex-convicts are required to pay for court fees, fines, and restitution (Ross and Richards, 150).