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Argumentative Essay On Incarceration In America

874 Words4 Pages

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. The prison population rate in the U.S. is 716 per 100,000 people. Unless someone has spent time researching this rate for different countries, the statistic probably doesn’t make much sense. Of the 222 countries and territories listed in the Tenth Edition of the ICPS World Prison Population List, 54% had rates below 150 per 100,000, and the world’s average was 144 per 100,000 …show more content…

isn’t the only thing people believe needs to change; the reasons for arrests have been criticized by many. America incarcerates more citizens for drug related crimes than any other place in the world. Of the roughly 200,000 in federal prison, 52% are being held for drug crimes and only 8% are for violent crimes, such as: murder, assault, and robbery (Waldman, 2013). Many believe that the “War on Drugs” must become less aggressive because of its large contribution to the prison population. The distribution of prisoners by race has also raised concern among Americans. According to the U.S. Census, over 75% of the citizens of the United States are White, making up the vast majority; however, African Americans are five times more likely to be incarcerated than Whites, and Hispanics are about twice as likely (Sakala,

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But one problem that African Americans still face is the unfairness of the American prison and criminal justice system. The United States holds the title as the highest prisoner population in the world. With African Americans account for less than 12% of the United States, they still make up a large portion of the U.S prison population. Black people are incarcerated at higher rates than whites, despite being equally susceptible to committing crimes as whites. The American prison and criminal justice system has a long history of racial discrimination towards African Americans which can be supported through examples of unjust laws, disproportionate incarceration rates among different races, the and cases of African Americans being unfairly persecuted for crimes they didn’t commit.

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