Review Of Article 28: Bobo, Thompson, Racialized Mass Incarceration

RTC 1- Article 28: Bobo, Thompson, “Racialized Mass Incarceration: Rounding Up the Usual Suspects” Article 28 in RTC discusses the steep rise of incarceration rates in the United States and how they are extremely racially unbalanced. For over 50 years, the incarceration rate of males in this country remained fairly constant. In the 80’s we see a drastic rise of incarceration rates that continue to present (Bobo &Thompson, 227). Why has the number of prisoners and rates of incarceration skyrocketed? The answer to this question is multifaceted. First off, the war on drugs quickly increased the rate of incarcerations but in a very racially biased way. Although whites were more likely to deliver an array of different drugs, blacks were more likely

One reason for this is more money is spent on the U.S. correctional system than the US educational system. The U.S. also has a rise in extreme incarceration conditions while simultaneously having decreasing availability of rehabilitation services (Bobo & Thompson, 227). When both educational and rehabilitation services are not readily available, this contributes to crime and arrest rates, and increases overall recidivism rates. Another factor is the U.S. has what is known as a ‘Mass Incarceration’ society. The effects of having a society such as this are high incarceration rates far above like societies, and “the social concentration of imprisonment effects” (Bobo & Thompson, 227). The latter of the two creates a situation where incarceration “ceases to be incarceration of individual offenders and becomes the systematic imprisonment of whole groups of the population” (Bobo & Thompson,

If Minorities were allowed equal opportunities to jobs and healthcare, the government would save money allowing the society once again to benefit as a whole. While reading through the article, I don’t see any original ideas for steps needed to close some of these gaps. The ideas mentioned are almost all already in practice in different places throughout the U.S. I don’t believe that most Americans would vote to have some of these policies implemented on a federal level because most of these programs are intended to help minorities. I believe that Whites find that threatening and tend to look at programs intended to help minorities achieve an even playing field as something that is used against them personally. Affirmative Action is a perfect example of that, as the authors stated it, “did bring many more people of color into middle-income jobs where they could begin to save, buy homes, and build wealth. However, the gap is still not closed” (396). What Whites fail to realize is that with the implementation of this policy, the number one benefactors of the program were White women, but many use the existence of this policy as the reason Whites don’t have a fair chance at employment and college