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African American Incarceration Analysis

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Perhaps African American incarcerations is a major issue in the United States? To some magnitude prison systems are not solving original mission. Originally prison systems in the 1930’s were invented to protect the society and confine offender in a controlled environment. Yet, the mission in the 21st century for the prison system is to enforce the law and protect the welfares of the United States. The society is incapable to control crimes, and depend on higher authorities to take responsibility of controlling crimes. Higher authorities administer laws, and regulate laws making the United States a harmless environment.
Amongst our society social divisions between the higher class and lower class has risen. Imagine being incarcerated, being …show more content…

The retribution part is to punish the person for the crime that they permitted against society, and the incapacitation part is to remove that person out of society so they do no further harm. Deterrence means the prevention of future crime, and the rehabilitation teaches life skills and in the betterment. However, author Sandiford says that instead of solving crime, mass incarceration has infected our communities and striking them with devastating symptoms, and prison costs have skyrocketed, inmates ' families have been torn apart, and the system is overwhelmingly stratified by race and class (Sandiford, …show more content…

A common concern for people would have to be what is the cost of building a prison? Nevertheless, the Department of Justice, Federal Bureau of Prison has double the last decade to pay for the cost of prisons, which they raised two billion dollars. Thus, the rise of incarceration causes for more prisons, and government seems to have no problem with funding for more prisons. The prison-industrial complex is a term coined from the infamous military-industrial complex--a name that originated during World War II, referring to the enormous amounts of money spent and made in the name of building the biggest war machine ever assembled (Hartman, 2000). This makes the prison industry in the second fastest growing industry in the

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Journal Response Angela Davis In the book Are Prisons obsolete? Davis describes the role of prison industrial complex in the rise of prisons. Prison industrial complex is a term used to characterize the overlapping interests of government and industry that use policing, surveillance and imprisonment as a result to social, economic and political problems. Private prisons operate a lot differently from prisons that aren’t private.

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Michelle Alexander explains how our society uses Mass Incarceration to control those in the African American community starting with the War on Drugs. She discusses how slavery and Jim crow were used to control the African American community, and when those ideas became stale government officials were searching for a new way to control the community. Thus, Mass Incarceration became the new caste system. This book has opened my eyes in various aspects. I have a better understand of the justice system after reading this book that I have had from watching the news and other media outlets.

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In todays’ society does race matter? Who in society thinks that race matters and who thinks it no longer matters? In our daily living we experience different types of racism. Some of us experience racism because of the color of our skin, the country we migrated from or just because we speak a different language. Additionally, people can be judged by the way they dress, or the food they eat.

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African-Americans are disproportionately imprisoned by discriminatory laws and deprived of their civil rights by our supposed democracy. This country’s criminal justice system still has not escaped the influence of racial prejudice. The criminal injustice system has transformed enslavement and institutionalized the violence and horror of previous generations, as slaves are no longer held in captivity on plantations, but rather in

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Is it fair that an African American man is sentenced up to life in prison for possession of drugs when Brock Turner is sentenced to only 14 years, later to be reduced to six months for sexually assaulting an unconscious women. The judiciary system are believed to have a high african american incarceration rate as a result of discrimination. At a presidential debate on Martin Luther King Day, President Barack Obama said that “Blacks and whites are arrested at very different rates, are convicted at very different rates, and receive very different sentences… for the same crime.” Hillary Clinton said the “disgrace of a criminal-justice system that incarcerates so many more african americans proportionately than whites.”

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Michelle Alexander, similarly, points out the same truth that African American men are targeted substantially by the criminal justice system due to the long history leading to racial bias and mass incarceration within her text “The New Jim Crow”. Both Martin Luther King Jr.’s and Michelle Alexander’s text exhibit the brutality and social injustice that the African American community experiences, which ultimately expedites the mass incarceration of African American men, reflecting the current flawed prison system in the U.S. The American prison system is flawed in numerous ways as both King and Alexander points out. A significant flaw that was identified is the injustice of specifically targeting African American men for crimes due to the racial stereotypes formed as a result of racial formation. Racial formation is the accumulation of racial identities and categories that are formed, reconstructed, and abrogated throughout history.

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My older brother Larry has been in and out of jail since he was 17 years old for hanging out with the wrong crowd. Soon after my brother’s first arrest, my mother lost strength in both her knees and was unable to stand and walk for long periods of time, which made it impossible to work. She developed blood clots in her legs. I was home for spring break during my first year of college when a blood clot in my mother’s leg traveled to her heart and killed her.

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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 several 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. This literature review will discuss the ineffectiveness of the United States’ criminal justice system and how mass incarceration of non-violent offenders, racial profiling, and a high rate of recidivism has become a problem.

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Further in the reading the inmate approaches two more doors and passes through the door labeled Democratic. Approaching two more doors labeled black and white he passes through the appropriate door once again. Subsequently, the man passes through the black door and he falls nine stories to the street. Symbolically, it shows how the color of your skin can determine the outcome of life behind bars and how the Democratic and Republican parties have played a great role in mass incarceration. African Americans, who are among the most populated race in American prisons, who suffer from drug addictions and do not receive adequate treatment for their substance abuse problems are among the many who return.

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If a quarter of the nation is locked up, and almost half of those prisoners are black, freedom is stripped from an entire race. African Americans only make up 13% of the US population (Vera). Despite their small racial representation in the country, the lifetime likelihood of a black man going to prison is 1 in 3, while the lifetime likelihood of a white man going to prison is 1 in 17 (DuVernay, 13th). However, the United States prison industry prior to Nixon was

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Imagine having to leave your home at the last minute. Where would you go? Millions of immigrants worldwide ask themselves the same question. Most of them choose America. When they arrive what do they expect?

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Thesis: It is very important for the sake of Americans tax dollars that we change the way that prisons are run and increase the productivity of inmates so when they are released from jail they are ready to be a productive member in society and have the confidence to achieve new goals. Introduction: Day after day, millions of inmates sit in jail doing nothing productive with their lives. We are paying to house inmates that may not even have a good reason to be there. For example, drug offenders are being kept with murderers and other violent offenders.

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People of all different races and ethnicities are locked behind bars because they have been convicted of committing a crime and they are paying for the consequences. When looking at the racial composition of a prison in the United States, it does not mimic the population. This is because some races and ethnicities are over represented in the correctional system in the U.S. (Walker, Spohn, & DeLone, 2018). According Walker et al. (2018), African-Americans/Blacks make up less than fifteen percent of the U.S. population, while this race has around thirty-seven percent of the population in the correctional system today.

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The prison-industrial complex is a corrupt political system that consists of overpowered politicians whose sole ambition is exploiting poor, uneducated, and under-privileged Americans to make money. Although, it wasn’t initially the purpose when Rockefeller started the war on drugs, but he started something bigger than he could’ve imagined at that time. The prison system has been proven to be ineffective, and costly waste of resources. However, it probably won’t be abolished due to the cash flow that it brings to some of the largest corporations in the

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Over 2 million people are currently being held in United States prisons, and while the U.S. may only hold 5% of the world’s population, it houses 25% of its prisoners. In the past few years, America’s prison system has fallen under public scrutiny for it’s rising incarceration rate and poor statistics. Many Americans have recently taken notice of the country’s disproportionate prisoner ratio, realized it’s the worst on the planet, and called for the immediate reformation of the failing system. The war on drugs and racial profiling are some of the largest concerns, and many people, some ordinary citizens and others important government figures, are attempting to bring change to one of the country 's lowest aspects.

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