The late 1960s was a time of social unrest worldwide which led to changes in government institutions. Due to globalization in the United States, many people were out of jobs and discontent with their lives. These people began to take their problems to the streets and began to advocate for better living and working conditions while creating solidarity among each other. This created a wave of advocates and activists who attempted to challenge the social institutions and government that were not helping them. Instead of hearing out their citizens, the United States government wanted to control and shut down these anti-capitalist and anti-racist ideas. One way to do silence these people is to incarcerate them. The problem of mass incarceration bloomed from the militarization of police and state to establish social control as well as the aftermath from the War on Drugs.
1968 captured the changes of government institutions here in the United States and shows the shift of the state’s role. During this time, the “U.S. welfare state has been dubbed ‘military Keynesianism’…… to denote the centrality of war-making to socioeconomic security” (Ruth
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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