Mass Incarceration
“Six million people are under correctional supervision in the U.S.—more than were in Stalin’s gulags.”
To the editor:
When Dr. Martin Luther King delivered his “I have a dream speech”, there was no way that he could have imagined that a new system would be born. Born from the ashes of slavery and Jim Crow, a new system of racial and social control; that would trap millions as second class citizens. A system known as Mass Incarceration. America 's current population accounts for approximately four percent of the world 's population. Of this four percent, America accounts for twenty-five percent of global incarceration, nearly 2.2 million people. America has the highest incarceration rate in the world. Over the last thirty
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They, by in large, will not provide the systematic changes needed to end mass incarceration. To end the prison industrial complex, we must create a national solution. Although some may say that under the constitution, the criminal justice system is a state problem and affair, thus preventing the creation of a national solution, the formation of a national solution would cause the creation of stronger state …show more content…
One, is the viable America. The America that is connected to its own economy, and where there is a plausible future for the ones born into it. But there is another America as well. One where opportunity and forgiveness are scarce. Those caught possessing recreational drugs are sent to prison for fifty years or more, never seeing their families and communities again, but rather a six by ten cement block. It doesn’t matter if they had a mental illness that led them to prison, or an unfair judgment because of their skin color. All that matters is that they fill a bed, so that private prison companies will make their pay. This is the current system of mass incarceration in America. Although America currently incarcerates a quarter of all prisoners in the world, people do nothing. 2.2 million citizens are missing from the nation, yet we see it as perfectly fine as these men, women, and children are criminals. Yes, they are criminals but they are also people. People who in our current prison system are being denied the basic human rights. Most prisoners are being tortured with solitary confinement, spending up to seven years with little to no human contact, with no way out. Those who are placed in confinement are not violent criminals but rather African American non-violent criminals. Non-violent criminals who often turned to crime because they are victims of our failed education system, or their parent had been in jail. Our prison
The third paragraph of this essay is primarily concerned with persuading the reader that the rate of imprisonment is on the rise, and that this form of punishment is now the form of choice in the United States. He cites the statistic,” 1.6 million Americans are behind bars today. That represents a 250 percent increase since 1980, and the number is climbing.” Lets look at this piece of information and analyze the value of such a statement. Foremost, he says “ 1.6 million Americans…” the key word here is Americans. Most readers of U.S origin in my opinion take this word “Americans” to mean people whom live in The United States. The truth of the matter is that the word Americans refers to those people whom live on either of the American continents. This means that Canadians, Mexicans, and Colombians are among those whom can be polled for this statistic. This statistic turns out to be misleading, when it is obvious that he is implying that these 1.6 million people are in U.S. prisons. Another fl...
The United States has a larger 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 growing exponentially. The expense generated by these overcrowded prisons cost the country a substantial amount of money every year. While 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. The ineffectiveness of the United States’ criminal justice system is caused by mass incarceration of non-violent offenders, racial profiling, and a high rate of recidivism.
Prison overpopulation puts a strain on the environment of our legal system. According to the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) the United States is currently incarcerating 1 in 100 American Adults. ALEC also claims that
The overpopulation in the prison system in America has been an on going problem in the United States for the past two decades. Not only does it effect the American people who are also the tax payers to fund all of the convicts in prisons and jails, but it also effects the prisoners themselves. Family members of the prisoners also come into effect. Overpopulation in prison cause a horrible chain reaction that causes nothing but suffering and problems for a whole bunch people. Yet through all the problems that lye with the overpopulation in prisons, there are some solutions to fix this ongoing huge problem in America.
Mass incarceration has caused the prison’s populations to increase dramatically. The reason for this increase in population is because of the sentencing policies that put a lot of men and women in prison for an unjust amount of time. The prison population has be caused by periods of high crime rates, by the medias assembly line approach to the production of news stories that bend the truth of the crimes, and by political figures preying on citizens fear. For example, this fear can be seen in “Richard Nixon’s famous campaign call for “law and order” spoke to those fears, hostilities, and racist underpinnings” (Mauer pg. 52). This causes law enforcement to focus on crimes that involve violent crimes/offenders. Such as, gang members, drive by shootings, drug dealers, and serial killers. Instead of our law agencies focusing their attention on the fundamental causes of crime. Such as, why these crimes are committed, the family, and preventive services. These agencies choose to fight crime by establishing a “War On Drugs” and with “Get Tough” sentencing policies. These policies include “three strikes laws, mandatory minimum sentences, and juvenile waives laws which allows kids to be trialed as adults.
What is education? Should education be limited to those who are free in society and not locked up behind bars? Education is a broad term which can be interpreted in many different ways, however , it is typically defined as the action or process of teaching , especially in a school, university,or college. As we seek to refine and reform education we must understand that education expands much farther than just the classroom. For instance education in jail, it 's a gateway for prisoners to come out as a new person and have a different view on life For example Malcolm X. Also it 's less likely for a prisoner to reoffend because they 're more likely to get a job with degree they earn while being incarcerated . Also this can help save tax money.
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
Prisons have been around for decades. Keeping housed, those of our society who have been convicted
According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics, in the year 1980 we had approximately 501,900 persons incarcerated across the United States. By the year 2000, that figure has jumped to over 2,014,000 prisoners. The current level of incarceration represents the continuation of a 25-year escalation of the nation's prison and jail population beginning in 1973. Currently the U.S. rate of 672 per 100,000 is second only to Russia, and represents a level of incarceration that is 6-10 times that of most industrialized nations. The rise in prison population in recent years is particularly remarkable given that crime rates have been falling nationally since 1992. With less crime, one might assume that fewer people would be sentenced to prison. This trend has been overridden by the increasing impact of lengthy mandatory sentencing policies.
Over the past several decades, the number of prison inmates has grown exponentially. In 1980, prison population had numbers around half a million inmates. A graph of statistics gathered from the U.S. Bureau of Justice shows that between 1980 and 2010, the prison population grew almost five times, topping out at nearly 2.5 million. According to an article in The New York Times, the average time spent in jail by prisoners released in 2009 increased by 36% compared to prisoners released in 1990. Many people, such as those at Human Rights Watch, believe that the increase of these numbers has been because of tough-on-crime laws, causing prisons to be filled with non-violent offenders. This rise in crime rates, prison population, and recidivism, has led politicians as well as ordinary citizens to call for prison reform.
Incarceration was established to reform the guilty, making them safer for society. However, this system has faced many obstacles. Over the years the incarcerated population has grown significantly. The United States has become the leading country in incarcerated population, creating the mass incarceration epidemic. Mass incarceration meaning that the United States’ prisons are becoming greatly overcrowded. Many issues have risen from mass incarceration due to the obstacles it creates.
There are too many people incarcerated in the United States of America. The U.S. imprisons 724 people per 100,000. In absolute numbers United States has more of its citizens behind bars then do China or Russia combined. (Gallagher 2008). There are about thousand U.S. citizens that become incarcerated in the prison system in any given week. Many of the prisons are so crowded that they have converted the gymnasium into a massive housing unit. These massive housing units hold hundreds of prisoners inside small gymnasiums. The bunk beds are stacked four or five high with every available space reserved for the bunk beds. Even though the prisons are over double capacity they have not added one extra toilet or shower at any of the facilities. Because of this many of the prisoners report tha...
America holds approximately five percent of the world’s population, however, we hold about twenty-five percent of the world’s prisoners. Literally, one-fourth of criminals are in the United States right now, and
Shelden, R. G. (1999). The Prison Industrial Complex. Retrieved November 16, 2013, from www.populist.com: http://www.populist.com/99.11.prison.html
Reese, F. (2013, September 8). America’s Prison System Is A Disaster | PopularResistance.Org. Retrieved April 4, 2014, from http://www.popularresistance.org/americas-prison-system-is-a-disaster/