Locked Up: Prison In America Analysis

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In the documentary Locked Up: Prison in America the main problem that is discussed is that due to mass incarceration there is an overflow of prisoners and the state can not house them all. One of the main concerns is that a lot of these prisoners are being locked up for non-violent crimes and it costing the state millions of dollars to house them in these prisons. For example it was getting so out of hand that they were forces to let one of the inmates out six months early because they needed the space to house all of these inmates in an already over crowded facility. Even though all of the people being interviewed for this documentary were African American I do not think that race plays a part in whether or not some get locked up. If you commit a crime you have to do the time for it regardless the color of your skin. On the other had I think that economic class plays a bigger role in whether or not some one gets incarcerated. One man in the documentary was locked up for stealing but he mentioned that he had to do it or he would not of been able to eat that night. …show more content…

Some kids were just getting incarcerated for not going to school. The relationship between crime and deviance has started to become blurred in the eyes of the justice system. No one deserves to be incarcerated for being a deviant but if a crime is committed then they have to be punished for it. Other options than mass incarceration is to put the deviants in special programs to help them and if they do not follow these programs and do what they are told to then you can incarcerate them for violating the rules of their program. Mass incarceration has become a big problem in America with over two million people currently incarcerated, but non violent crimes can be dealt with in other ways and these people do not need to be immediately incarcerated once they do something