The Effects Of Incarceration

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Does incarceration affect communities and cause them to become impoverished or do impoverished communities contribute to the mass incarceration epidemic? It’s like the question, which came first, the chicken or the egg? Although it is unconfirmed as to whether incarceration leads to poverty or poverty leads to incarceration, it is factual that poverty lends a hand to incarceration and the dynamics of both have long lasting effects on society and the United States.

The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) reports 2.2 million people are in our nation’s jails and prisons and another 4.5 million people are on probation or parole in the U.S., totaling 6.8 million people, one of every 35 adults. We are far and away the world leader in putting our own people in jail. Most of the people inside are poor and Black. It is not just about crime, police …show more content…

Getting locked up is unlikely to be good for your health but it’s “terrific, terrific” business for the booming private industry supplying doctors and nurses to jails and prisons.
Companies line up to market everything from jumpsuits and meal trays to masks to stop prisoners from spitting, straitjackets and other full-body restraints.
The US has the highest incarceration rate in the world. Some 2.2 million adults were incarcerated in 2013 in US federal and state prisons and county jails, according to the bureau of justice statistics. States spend about $8bn a year on healthcare to try to keep prisoners alive. To cut costs, more state prisons and county jails are adding healthcare to the growing list of services that are outsourced to for-profit companies. The companies making the most money from prisons in America are Geo Group and Corrections Corporation of America (CCA), which combined run more than 170 prisons and detention centers. CCA made revenues of $1.79bn in 2015, up from $1.65bn in 2014. Geo Group made revenues of $1.84bn, a 9% increase on the previous year. (The Guardian.com, us-news,

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