ipl-logo

Essay On Mass Incarceration

1125 Words5 Pages

One of the many ways that scholars determine how well a country is doing, is by how they treat their criminals. These are the people that no country wants. These are the people that make a country look bad. These are the people that drain resources and cause chaos. It is a good metric to how well a country is doing by how well they treat these undesirable people. The United States of America is failing. We are not doing a good job taking care of our undesirable people. We have seen a decrease in crime since the late 1980s but there has been an increase in incarceration rates since that time. Currently, we have over two million people incarcerated (Wagner & Rabury, 2017, para. 2). If you look at how many people come through the jail system each year, that number is …show more content…

The funds are still not enough to properly take care of the prisoners we have. This is leading to many problems. I will discuss issue of overcrowding, problems it has created and ways to fix these issues. Overcrowding in prisons may seem like an easy fix if you fail to fully engross yourself in every aspect of this situation. At first, I was naïve and thought that if you just released people, the problem would fix itself. However, we are far from that being a viable solution. Mass incarceration in the United States has ruined lives. It has ruined the lives of the people who are put into prison and the lives of those around them. There is also a racial component to this. African American men are disproportionately incarcerated above any other racial group. There are also a disproportionate amount of people from low-income urban areas. This has created pockets of areas that are deemed unsafe to walk around as people feel harassed my law enforcement. What does this yield? This has created an unsafe environment within prisons. The people who are put into prisons feel victimized. The people put in prisons feel hatred towards the

Show More
Related

Mass Incarceration Literature Review

1728 Words | 7 Pages

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.

Read More

The Pros And Cons Of The Incarceration System

1151 Words | 5 Pages

It has been drilled into our heads since childhood that criminals deserve harsh punishment, that they are subhuman and incapable of change. However, it is important to revisit our biases and how our authority exploits this prejudice to mistreat endangered groups in society. Justice should not be defined by punishment, but by rehabilitation and restoration. The criminal justice system should not be a tool of oppression, but a mechanism for healing and growth. Our incarceration system benefits neither the criminals nor the public, and only further oppresses and endangers our prisoners.

Read More

Essay On Mass Incarceration

583 Words | 3 Pages

This article describes mass incarceration as a trend. How the development of prisons are on the raise due to the trend. Increasing criminalization in communities and imposing cruel punishments for minor offenses. This article explores how cultural productions of poverty and exclusion intersect with prison development. How those in poverty are more likely to be targeted due to their race, ethnicity, and class.

Read More

Essay On Mass Incarceration

1840 Words | 8 Pages

However, besides the factors that have contributed to the growing rates in prisons, it is equally as important to note how mass incarceration has affected the communities of those incarcerated. Clear (2008) discusses various effects inflicted on ones community once they are incarcerated and mentions “These destructive effects are felt in the lives of children, as well as in family functioning, mental and physical health, labor markets, and the economic and political infrastructures of these places. (Clear, P.102). In other words, it affects the community largely in the sense that those children do poorly in their education and could even end up on the same path. As for family functioning, incarceration can affect the family dynamic because loss of income, and the socioeconomic view of the community could decrease even more due to the fear of further crime and as a result, it will be a challenge to obtain a decent living.

Read More

Essay On Mass Incarceration

1180 Words | 5 Pages

The United States carries more than 20% of the world’s incarcerated population, even though they are only 5% of the world’s population. The United States government spends billions of taxpayers’ dollars on maintaining prisons and filling them up with people to meet their requirements. The War on Drugs was the cause for 58% of prisoners to be in there for non-violent drug offenses and most of these prisoners were Black and Brown people (Craig Gilmore, 18). Although there were prisons being built, crime was declining in the ‘80s so government officials had to create new laws to get new criminals. The shift in discourse and laws created, allowed for more policing and an increase in arrest rates and led to the problem of mass

Read More

Essay On Mass Incarceration

440 Words | 2 Pages

In the Time Magazine article titled “39% of Prisoners Should Not Be in Prison” written by Lauren-Brooke Eisen and Inimai Chettiar, they examine the issue of mass incarceration and give two practical solutions that they believe could work. The issue of mass incarceration is the greatest racial and ethical issue in the U.S. Many people are put in prison for a sustainable amount of time for non-violent crimes. With Trump’s campaign being focus on being tough on crime, there is some uncertainty on how the issue of mass incarceration will be seen from Republicans and nationwide. Previously there has been trans partisan agreement that the issue of mass incarceration need to be address.

Read More

Prison Overcrowding Speech Outline

994 Words | 4 Pages

Topic: Prison overcrowding General Purpose: To inform Specific Purpose: At the end of my speech, the audience will be able to identify and describe the key reasons and issues of prison overcrowding. Introduction Attention Getter Imagine being locked up in a confined space with little to no air conditioning, concrete walls, concrete floors, poor sanitation, rowdy peers, no soft comforts of a home, and a lack of the everyday basic needs.

Read More

Essay On Mass Incarceration

1174 Words | 5 Pages

In the United States, mass incarceration is at an all- time high and socially concentrated. Nowhere in the world is as high as our prison system. Since 1970, incarceration rates have quintupled, while the U.S. population itself has only grown by about 40% (Alexander,2010). The U.S. census report said black Americans were incarcerated in state prisons at an average rate of 5.1 times that of white Americans. In some states that rate was 10 times or more.

Read More

The Pros And Cons Of Prison Reform

265 Words | 2 Pages

In my opinion, prisons are not the solution for most offenders of the law and the issue over use of the prison system can be resolved by looking towards alternatives. The system is in strong need of reform, especially for bail and prisons. Bail is very expensive and many people who are hauled off to jail are not able to pay to get out. It is estimated that around 11 million people go through jails in recent years, and the cost of holding them there is costly. (prisonpolicy, 2017)

Read More

The Pros And Cons Of Overcrowded Prisons

241 Words | 1 Pages

Overcrowded prisons are a serious matter to the system and people. Immediate measures should be deployed to address this menace. Despite the investigations done on the nature or situation of prison and prison system, in the United States, little has been done to determine the baseline of this problem. People generally think that whenever a person has been arrested and done their time they are rehabilitated. Unfortunately, it’s the opposite.

Read More

Should Prisoners Deserve To Be Victimized Essay

681 Words | 3 Pages

They often will find themselves victimized by the other inmates. Whether or not criminals deserve to become victims while in the penitentiary is up to debate. There is a belief that prisoners are put in jail for a reason and they deserve to be harmed by other criminals while locked up. In a prison, both female and male, inmates will attack and harm one another.

Read More

Nonviolent Crime In Prisons

1206 Words | 5 Pages

This problem is getting worse and worse by the years and even former president Barrack Obama commented- “Over the last few decades, we’ve locked up more and more nonviolent offenders than ever before. Longer than ever before and that is the real reason our prison population is so high.” The United States has imprisoned more than 25 percent of all the prisoners in the world, even though we only have about 5 percent of the world’s population.

Read More

Prison Reform Essay

1771 Words | 8 Pages

(Bureau of Justice Statistics) Norway, in contrast, has one of the lowest relapse rates in the world, with only 20% of released prisoners committing new crimes within two years. The conditions of confinement are another significant distinction between the two prison systems. In many prisons in the United States, there is overcrowding, violence, and subpar living conditions. As a result, prisoners may become more resistant to reform and engage in a cycle of violence and abuse. The goal in Norway is to give prisoners a humane and respectable environment.

Read More

The Pros And Cons Of Prisons

1192 Words | 5 Pages

“Prisons and jails consume a growing portion of the nearly $200 billion we spend annually on public safety” (“Criminal Justice Fact Sheet” 27). “About $70 billion dollars yearly.” (“Criminal Justice Fact Sheet” 26). “This is a huge problem in the United States currently and for only having only about 5% of the population of the World,

Read More

American Correctional System Analysis

2100 Words | 9 Pages

In 2010 prisons were over with about 2.2 million incarcerated Americans, on average every prison was over capacity by 14 percent, there are even some prisons that were over capacity by 34 percent. Annually the government spends roughly 60 million dollars on the correctional system and with the rise of amount if people being incarcerated that number will also greatly rise, thus depleting our budgets as well as our society as a whole (English, 2010). Prison philosophy is of prevention, deterrence and retribution, however according to Gudaris “the rehabilitative effect of long term incarceration appears to be negligible. Most imprisoned individuals will be released at some point and will reoffend” (Gudaris, 2013). Many criminals and gangs use prisons as a headquarters to recruit new members and run operations for their personal benefits.

Read More

More about Essay On Mass Incarceration

Open Document