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Pros And Cons Of Prison Incarceration

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Are Prison Incarceration Rates Justifiable? Critics of the current system argue that the high rate of incarceration is not justifiable. They pointed to a number of issues, including the disproportionate impact of incarceration on communities of color, and the high cost of incarceration both to individuals and to society as a whole, who are incarcerated do not pose a serious threat to public safety. The high incarceration rate in the United States is not justifiable because the goal of prisons should be to make productive citizens through education, job opportunities, and other forms of rehabilitation.
The debate about whether the high incarceration rate in the United States is justifiable or not leans more towards not justifiable because …show more content…

In addition, education programs can help individuals who are incarcerated develop the skills and knowledge they need to succeed once they are released from prison. Also, from Source D, Powell adds, "It was then that I was introduced to Learning Together, which promotes educational partnerships between prisons and the rest of society that involves students, mentors, facilitators, and lectures.” Studies showed that education programs can help recidivism rates. Many advocates for criminal justice reform argue that investing in education programs inside prisons is a smart investment in public safety and future success for …show more content…

Source A. justifies, “Five in 6 (38%) state prisoners released in 2005 across 30 states were arrested at least once during their 9 years of being released. . .” (Alpher, Durose, Markman). Police and jails are supposed to promote public safety. Increasingly, however, law enforcement is called upon to respond punitively to economic problems. Repeated arrests are related to race and poverty, as such as high rates of mental illness and substance abuse. Source A. also specifies, “About 4 in 9 (44%) prisoners released in 2005 were arrested at least once during their first year of release. . .” (Alpher, Durose, Markman). Even after being given an opportunity of getting a job most possibilities of getting a job remain stagnant their record prevents them from acquiring feasible jobs. Wes Moore proposes, “The problem was military school was not free” (Moore 95). Wes Moore was going to be sent off to a military school because he was missing school and got involved in a smoke bomb incident. Joy had had enough of the way that Wes was acting, she suggests that this was the only way to prevent him from getting into more trouble than he already was. Wes Moore’s mother denied to sit idly as she observed her child make shocking choices, so she put a conclusion to that by constraining him to go to military school to induce him

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The United States criminal justice system is diminishing millions of lives every day. Ironically, the amount of inequalities that the criminal justice system portrays goes against the term ‘justice’. There is a 33% chance that a black male will end up in jail in his lifetime, while white males have a 6% chance. There are 4,749 black males incarcerated while there are only 703 white males. Prisons receive revenue of 1.65 billion dollars per year which makes them willing to incarcerate anyone that they can (“Enduring Myth of Black Criminality”).

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Over the past 40 years U.S. incarceration has grown at an extraordinary rate, with the United States’ prison population increasing from 320,000 inmates in 1980 to nearly 2.3 million inmates in 2013. The growth in prison population is in part due to society’s shift toward tough on crime policies including determinate sentencing, truth-in-sentencing laws, and mandatory minimums. These tough on crime policies resulted in more individuals committing less serious crimes being sentenced to serve time and longer prison sentences. The 1970s-1980s: The War on Drugs and Changes in Sentencing Policy Incarceration rates did rise above 140 persons imprisoned per 100,000 of the population until the mid 1970s.

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However, the penalty stands to be only temporary. Studies have shown that only seventy-one percent of those released from prison are convicted of a serious crime within only three years after their releasement ( ). Is prison housing the criminals or teaching them? A correctional facility is built to correct and rehabilitate, however prison systems in America appear to be only a short stop before the production of the criminals grand plan. The majority of those who are sentenced to prison have a high rate of returning due to their difficulty in gaining a position with a self-sustaining wage and a lack knowledge on a life without crime.

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INTRODUCTION The United States incarcerates a greater percentage of the population than any country in the world (CBS, 2012). According to the US Bureau of Justice Statistics, over 2.3 million adults were incarcerated in federal and state prisons, and county jails in 2013. There are an additional 820,000 people on parole and 3.8 million people on probation (Wagner & Rabuy, 2016) Jail and prison differ primarily in regards to the length of stay for inmates.

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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.

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Just imagine the city of Houston being populated with nothing but prisoners. This is how badly the prison system has gotten overcrowded since the 1980's, and it is only going to get worse. Overpopulation has affected the lives of prisoners inside and outside of prison with a plethora of reasons that cause more harm than good. The only way to solve these problems is to reform the programs inside prisons and to reform the laws in the justice system. Prison reform is needed in the current rehabilitation programs inside of prison since little effort is used to implement a correct recovery for the convicted.

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Pros and Cons There are two common viewpoints when discussing mass incarceration. The first of the two revolves around the idea that the system of criminal justice is working, while the second provides that the word “justice” means “just us” – referring to the profiling of people of color (Brown, 2008, p. 53). Looking at the statistics at face value may seem staggering, but there are important aspects to consider before determining whether mass incarceration is justified. For those who believe that mass incarceration is justified, there are facts that may provide some truth.

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When people get out of prison they are afraid of going back. They don't have a reason to change. Most people don't have a way of even getting a job once there out as stated here, ”I work in a medium security prison in North Carolina that serves young men ages 18 to 25. There is one segment of our population that no program addresses. This is the group that will probably never be able to get a GED, and therefore they do not qualify for many of the programs designed to help with job

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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.

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Race, Class, and Incarceration The main goal of the U.S. law enforcement has been to make the world a safer place but in the process of making the world a safer and “better” place there have been quite some downfalls. One of those many downfalls would have to be the American prison system. In today’s society police enforcement has given so much focus on prosecuting street crime while failing to acknowledge white-collar crime and other major crimes that occur every day.

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Racial Disparities in the American Criminal Justice System Introduction The United States criminal justice system is the largest in the world. In 2015, there were more than 6.7 million people under some form of correctional control within the United States, including 2.2 million incarcerated in federal, state, or local prisons and jails. By being the world leader in incarceration rates, the United States eclipses the rate of any other nation. These statistics from “The Sentencing Project” emphasize the significance of mass incarceration in America and the racial inequality that takes form in its criminal justice system.

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The United States of America is known across the world as one of the biggest superpowers, both in its military and economy. It is a democratic nation that runs on a successful capitalist system, which especially benefits those in positions of power. In the 1960’s, 200,000 people were incarcerated across the country, however this number has increased rapidly in the last fifty years and now more than 2 million people are incarcerated in prisons and detention centres all across the United States, leading to what is described as an age of mass incarceration. There is evidence to suggest that mass incarceration does benefit the American capitalist system and that the institution of criminal justice is beneficial to capital gain. America is a nation that prides itself on truth and justice for all its citizens, however it could be argued that America values its capitalist advancement more than the individual rights of the people who live there and consequently marginalises and discriminates against its African American and Latino communities in order to further its capitalist system.

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The United States has the highest rate of incarceration in the world. Our country has only 5% of the world’s population, yet we incarcerate 25% of the world’s prisoners. In real numbers, that statistic translates into 2.3 million people behind bars. There are currently five times as many people incarcerated now than there were in 1970. (CILENTI, 2015)

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Introduction No study has yet calculated the cost of incarceration; nevertheless, lots of evaluation have been made on the cost of crime (McLaughlin, Pettus-Davis, Brown, Veeh & Renn, 2016). In the USA, one out of three adults holds a criminal record. The huge and continuous rate of incarceration deprives individuals of freedom and costs a lot to taxpayers who pay large amounts of money, federal, and state budgets (Abrams, 2013). But, according to Cesare Beccaria and Jeremy Bentham, people do not just execute crime; they weigh and analyze the pros and cons of the crime, and then, are convinced that they can exceed the consequences of their acts. Therefore, it may be fair to think that they should be held responsible since they base their actions on choice theory (Hall, 2012).

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Criminal Justice Reform addresses structural issues in criminal justice systems such as racial profiling, police brutality, overcriminalization, mass incarceration, and recidivism. The United States incarcerates its citizens more than any other country. Mass incarceration disproportionally impacts the poor, and people of color, and does not make us safer. In an attempt to balance safety and justice for those accused of a crime, many jurisdictions have enacted new criminal laws. Some examples of this new approach include the elimination of cash bail, decriminalization of actions previously treated as crimes, and refusal to prosecute persons arrested for crimes.

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