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A problem with mass incarceration in the united states
A problem with mass incarceration in the united states
A problem with mass incarceration in the united states
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Over the last thirty years, the prison population in the United States has increased more than seven-fold to over two million people, including vastly disproportionate numbers of minorities and people with little education. For some racial and educational groups, incarceration has become a depressingly regular experience, and prison culture and influence pervade their communities. Almost 60 percent of black male high school drop-outs in their early thirties have spent time in prison. In Punishment and Inequality in America, sociologist Bruce Western explores the recent era of mass incarceration and the serious social and economic consequences it has wrought.
The criminal justice system may be more corrupt than the people who fill our prisons. It is amazing to see the many ways that certain parts of society actually benefit from the current system we support. This book,The Rich Get Richer and The Poor Get Prison, by authors Jeffrey Reiman and Paul Leighton, has open my eyes to a very corrupt idealism. They are very precise in their supporting examples as well by walking the reader through each step and analogy.
I found an opinion article from CNN written in 2015 by Evan Feinberg. His article is titled, “Why are so many Americans criminals?” In the article, he explains how America has the highest incarceration rate in the world, creating a huge problem for its citizens. Feinberg cited a statistic that incarceration leads to an 11% drop in wages, 9 weeks lost of employments each year, and a 40% annual reduction in wages (Pew).
In “ Remarks by the President at the NAACP Conference,” President Obama speaks in a powerful yet passionate way about our criminal justice system to NAACP Convention Attendants during the 2015 NAACP Convention so that he has our support on refining our criminal justice system. Obama uses many rhetorical appeals to reach his purpose out to the NAACP Conference Attendants. The NAACP, National Association for the Advancement of the Colored People, has a respectful relationship towards President Obama. They also support him and racial equality which makes it easier for him to achieve his purpose, getting support on meliorating our criminal justice system because most of the prisoners are African American. President Obama employs statistics, anecdotes, and rhetorical questions in “ Remarks by the President at the NAACP Conference,” in order to appeal to his intended audience and achieve his purpose.
developed—the first institution in which men were both “confined and set to labor in order to learn the habits of industry” (LeBaron, 2012, p.331). Although prisons had been designed to enforce and promote punishment, retribution and deterrence, they have also fallen into the conceptual belief that they were in many instances, nothing more than a sweat shop for the socially-undesired. At this point in history, there was very little reform and an immense lack of regulation for prisons or for the proper way they should be ran. Finances. In modern-day calculations, prison labor has been rather beneficial to the U.S. government, bringing in an average of 1.6 billion dollars in 1997.
Those who find themselves sentenced to time in a penitentiary, jail, or prison are at risk of either being broken or strengthened by the time they spend behind bars. There is a great debate of whether or not the prison system in the United States is positive or negative. The following will briefly highlight the positives, negatives, and possible alternatives for our nation's prison system. First, there is a long list of negatives that the prison system in America brings. The prison system is filled with crime, hate, and negativity almost as much as the free world is.
Why the prison system is flawed The american prison system is flawed and should be changed because it is very expensive to keep it running the way it is, the prison system is helping gangs grow and it can be fixed it is possible. I believe that it needs to change so that cities will have more tax money to fix other things and the people who don't deserve to get released won't be. The prison system is very expensive for taxpayers because they have to pay to employ the officers, they have to pay for the building, the tools, the food for them to eat, there clothing and bedding.
This issue led to what is now resulting in mass incarceration. Mass incarceration has been shown to affect mostly poor and minorities. Individuals living in poverty are not afforded the same royalties as those who are not in poverty. They are more willing to commit crimes because of their lack of fortune. The crime rate is more prone to be in urban communities, which hold a significant number of minorities.
Since 1970, our prison population has risen by some 700% - an increase far outpacing rates of population growth and crime1”. The reason America has so many incarcerated people is not because Americans commit more crimes or the police are just better at finding criminals,
Another example of how the prison system harms the economy is that ever since 1950, the number of people in the prison system has increased exponentially over the last 40 years. There are around 1.46 million people in the United States prison system and 39% of them were in prison for no public safety reason and could have been punished in a less costly and damaging way (such as community service) (Source B). Having low-risk offenders do community service helps the environment and gives the offender a less harsh
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.
Others might argue that inmate benefit from having a job. They become better behaved, they achieve a sense of responsibility and accomplishment, and even their families become proud of them. Studies have shown that prisoners are 24% less likely to return to a life of crime when they participate in the correction
Thesis Hypothesis and Statement: Prisons in in the United States of America are definitely overcrowded, they are understaffed and I believe put very little effort on rehabilitation. The U.S. prison system was set up to rehabilitate prisoners so they can blend back into society as good people. But the factors as high crime rate and of course, mandatory sentences have caused a very high over crowding in our jail systems. This have caused a high increase in the budget deficit. Some citizens will say, where was the rehabilitation that we once used and it has all but now disappeared in our prison and jail system today.
The US prison population makes up 25% of the world’s prison population while the rest of America only makes up 5% of the world population. The cost of keeping these 2 million people in the US behind bars is an astonishing $80 billion. With such a gargantuan price, politicians, economists, and concerned taxpayers are struggling to find ways to reduce costs. Two ways have been identified as the most promising: privatize the prison industry or put inmates to work. There have already been successful implementations of both around the country, yet inmate labor is likely to be stifled and greatly discouraged due to its association with slave labor.
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
