Mass incarceration has put a large eye-sore of a target on the United States’ back. It is hurting our economy and putting us into more debt. It has considerable social consequences on children and ex-felons. Many of these incarcerations can be due to the “War on Drugs”. We should contract the use of incarceration.
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. In theory if this trend continues it is estimated that about 1 in 3 black males being born can be expected to spend time in prison and some point in his life. One in nine African American males between the ages of 25 and 29 are currently incarcerated. Although the rate of imprisonment for women is considerably lower than males African American women are incarc...
Most black Americans are under the control of the criminal justice today whether in parole or probation or whether in jail or prison. Accomplishments of the civil rights association have been challenged by mass incarceration of the African Americans in fighting drugs in the country. Although the Jim Crow laws are not so common, many African Americans are still arrested for very minor crimes. They remain disfranchised and marginalized and trapped by criminal justice that has named them felons and refuted them their rights to be free of lawful employment and discrimination and also education and other public benefits that other citizens enjoy. There is exists discernment in voting rights, employment, education and housing when it comes to privileges. In the, ‘the new Jim crow’ mass incarceration has been described to serve the same function as the post civil war Jim crow laws and pre civil war slavery. (Michelle 16) This essay would defend Michelle Alexander’s argument that mass incarcerations represent the ‘new Jim crow.’
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
Mass incarceration is a system that locks people not only behind actual bars in actual prisons, but also behind virtual bars and virtual walls-walls that are invisible to the naked eye, but function nearly as effectively as Jim Crow laws once did at locking people of color into permanent second class citizenship (Alexander, 2012, p.12-13). The class of V100 taught me that the war on drugs is the leading cause of the prison boom in our country. A power-point slide from professor Jones, claims that approximately half a million people are in prison or jail for drug offense today compared to an estimated 41,000 in 1980. Drug offenders in the United States spend more time under the criminal justice system’s formal control—in jail or prison, on probation or parole – than drug offenders anywhere else in the world (Alexander, 2012, p.186). Here Michelle
Incarceration has not always been the main form of “punishment” when it comes to doing an injustice to society. In fact, in the early 1600’s common forms of punishments for doing wrong in society included social rejection, corporal punishment, forced labor etc. (“Prison History.”). It had not been until the 18th century where it had been determined that incarceration could actually be a form of punishment correlating with a set amount of time in which an individual had to serve dependent on the severity of his actions. The logic behind incarceration is to restrict a person of his liberty as retribution for the crime he has committed (Prison History.”) Prisons that were created in the 18th century gained their recognition because of their high goals in perfecting society. But, the truth is as people were focusing on perfecting society prisons soon became overcrowded, dirty, and most of all dangerous. By the late 19th century many more people had become aware of the poor prison conditions which had led to a “reformatory” movement. The reformatory movement was put into place as a means of rehabilitation for inmates (“Prison History.”) Prisons would now offer programs to reform inmates into model citizens by offering counseling, education, and opportunities to gain skills needed for working in a civilian world. However, with the growing amount of inmates each year prisons are still becoming overcrowded. Because prisons are so overcrowded there are not enough resources being spent on achieving the rehabilitation of inmates and reintegrating them into society in order for them to survive in the civilian world once released from prison (“Prison History.”)
In the wake of President Obama’s election, the United States seems to be progressing towards a post-racial society. However, the rates of mass incarceration of black males in America deem this to be otherwise. Understanding mass incarceration as a modern racial caste system will reveal the role of the criminal justice system in creating and perpetuating racial hierarchy America. The history of social control in the United States dates back to the first racial caste systems: slavery and the Jim Crow Laws. Although these caste systems were outlawed by the 13th amendment and Civil Rights Act respectively, they are given new life and tailored to the needs of the time.In other words, racial caste in America has not ended but has merely been redesigned in the shape of mass incarceration. Once again, the fact that more than half of the young black men in many large American cities are under the control of the criminal justice system show evidence of a new racial caste system at work. The structure of the criminal justice system brings a disproportionate number of young black males into prisons, relegating them to a permanent second-class status, and ensuring there chances of freedom are slim. Even when minorities are released from prisons, they are discriminated against and most usually end up back in prisons . The role of race in criminal justice system is set up to discriminate, arrest, and imprison a mass number of minority men. From stopping, searching, and arresting, to plea bargaining and sentencing it is apparent that in every phases of the criminal justice system race plays a huge factor. Race and structure of Criminal Justice System, also, inhibit the integration of ex offenders into society and instead of freedom, relea...
Alexander (2010) suggests mass incarceration as a system of racialized social control that functions in the same way Jim Crow did. She describes how people that have been incarcer...
In the United States, prison, or rather incarceration, is the most common type of punishment that is dispensed to criminals by the criminal justice system once they have been convicted. Looking back half a century ago, the rate of incarceration in the united states was still low and almost similar to those of countries such as Denmark and Finland. However, the last three decades or so have seen the rise of mass incarceration as a punitive criminal justice measure in the United States to the extent where a greater proportion of the population are incarcerated than in any other country. Incarceration usually involves the locking up of offenders in prisons where they are subjected to harsh and restrictive conditions. However, the use of prisons to lock up offenders and punish them has been largely
Written by Patricia Kelly in January 1, 2015, “Mass Incarceration” is an article from Public Health Nursing journal which argues that mass incarceration in the United States, as a result of the “War on Drugs” has greatly impacted the lives of people of color. Additionally, Robert DeFina and Lance Hannon; professors at Villanova University, who are actively engaged in matters pertaining to criminal and social justice, vindicate racial control in the article, “Impact of mass incarceration on poverty” that was recorded in Sage journals. For the most part, these two sources use a combination of the rhetorical strategies; logos, ethos and pathos to argue that “War on Drugs” hopped up on federal funds and confisticated
In the United States, the rate of incarceration has increased shockingly over the past few years. In 2008, it was said that one in 100 U.S. adults were behind bars, meaning more than 2.3 million people. Even more surprising than this high rate is the fact that African Americans have been disproportionately incarcerated, especially low-income and lowly educated blacks. This is racialized mass incarceration. There are a few reasons why racialized mass incarceration occurs and how it negatively affects poor black communities.
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.
Overcrowding of prisons due to mass incarceration is among one of the biggest problems in America, mass incarceration has ruined many families and lives over the years.America has the highest prison population rate , over the past forty years from 1984 until 2014 that number has grown by four hundred percent .America has four percent of the world population ,but twenty-five percent of the world population of incarcerated people Forty one percent of American juveniles have been or going to be arrested before the age of 23. America has been experimenting with incarceration as a way of showing that they are tough on crime but it actually it just show that they are tough on criminals. imprisonment was put in place to punish, criminals, protect society and rehabilitate criminals for their return into the society .
It is undeniable that mass incarceration devastates families, and disproportionately affects those which are poor. When examining the crimes that bring individuals into the prison system, it is clear that there is often a pre-existing pattern of hardship, addiction, or mental illness in offenders’ lives. The children of the incarcerated are then victimized by the removal of those who care for them and a system which plants more obstacles than imaginable on the path to responsible rehabilitation. Sometimes, those returned to the community are “worse off” after a period of confinement than when they entered. For county jails, the problem of cost and recidivism are exacerbated by budgetary constraints and various state mandates. Due to the inability of incarceration to satisfy long-term criminal justice objectives and the very high expenditures associated with the sanction, policy makers at various levels of government have sought to identify appropriate alternatives(Luna-Firebaugh, 2003, p.51-66).
The issue of mass incarceration sparked conversation about racial disparities within the prison system. Following the abolishment of Jim Crow, legal racial segregation in the United States appeared dead. According to civil rights advocate Michelle Alexander this is not the case; racial segregation appears dead, but mass incarceration perpetuates a racial caste system that preserves this outdated practice. Alexander’s book, The New Jim Crow argues that politicians used implicit language to ignite a racially charged War on Drugs to legally allow segregation.