Essay On Incarceration In America

To begin with, the overall rates of incarceration in America is staggering as a whole. The population has grown exponentially during the last few decades, raising each and every year due to more opportunities in crime committing. Not only the raising rates occur on a federal level, but a state level as well. Discovered by John Hagan, a research professor and co-director of the center on law and globalization at the American Bar Foundation, and Traci Burch, assistant professor in political science at Northwestern University and Research professor at American Bar Foundation, that between the years 1920 and 1975, the state and federal prison population represented about 1 in 1,000, where as by 2001, .69 percent of the population was in prison

From such a small percent to a high percent, the overall population of blacks and the minorities must be taken accounted for. Thus, the incarceration rate is disportional. Having the minority group of African American having not even a third of the US population, it must say something about the justice system. Ethnicity plays a role in prison sentencing. Even more so, another researcher, Martin Explains, author of “One in Three,” explains that since the 1980’s, the US prison population has quadrupled where 60% percent of it at black, who only make 13% of the US population. One in three are expected to go back to prison (Explains 106). This alone is in the United States is seen high when looking at the population as whole. With the most of this certain minority group imprisoned, the men are are considered “missing” takes a toll on society. Less voters for elections, less presence in their families, and more money to give into the system to keep those incarcerated at humane conditions. If this minority group makes up not even half of the US population, but more than half of their population are imprisoned, then there is an injustice in the