The amount of mass incarceration in the United States as reached an all time high over the years. Mass Incarceration is the incarceration of a person or race based off of them being different and can be identified as a trend among law enforcements.These tensions have reached a certain extent and has received the attention of American citizens and the nation’s government. The laws of the United States seems fair, however with the enforcement of these laws, specific groups are targeted and abused by them daily. The abuse of various ethnicities and groups has taken action in the enforcers of the law, the policemen. These forms of government has taken the control of criminals and placed it races outside the white barrier. Though Civil Rights Movements and other …show more content…
For example, some ways to majorly lessen the amount of mass incarceration is to just change the view of the people. By altering the view of the people, certain groups of people wouldn’t be targeted due to the color of their skin but rather by the severity of their action. Another solution to solving mass incarceration is give citations rather than arrest petty criminals. For instance, instead of arresting someone and incarcerating them in jail for 10+ years, giving them a citation would be healthier as it allows for the participant to rehabilitate and learn from their mistakes. This can be shown in the 13th saying “The US houses 25% of the world’s prisoners” (Duvernay, 2016). By allowing for this to occur, inmates are able to look back and repent against the sins that they’ve caused instead of going to prison to waste room for a petty little crime they‘ve done. To promote these, everyday people and citizens could petition for more citations rather than arrests and build an open mind that every living person is a human and should not be judged by the color of their
People see prison as a site which people who are unliked, unfavored, and undesired to be stationed and placed. It is seen that an increasing number of African Americans, Latinos, and Native Americans are more likely to be imprisoned then to have an
The recommendation calls for civil rights advocates to put mass incarceration on their agenda similar in the ways civil rights advocate’s affirmative action agenda. In my opinion, America is at a turning point where mass incarceration is slowly fading away with state lawmakers trying to cut prison cost. Being labeled as a felon is a stigma that can and will follow individuals for the rest of their lives. However, there is a change in the atmosphere and how society view individuals with felony records. Opportunities are slowly becoming available such as jobs and education, allowing these individuals to reenter society.
This is a huge problem. Throughout history and research it is shown how this damages the community, families, society, and the people incarcerated themselves. In A Lesson Before Dying by Ernest Gaines, in the opening chapter it is shown how people of color cannot be trusted.
Mass Incarceration: Transforming an Unconstitutional System. Guild Notes, 40(4), 12. Brad Broussard in his article, Mass
United States being the most cosmopolitan country in the world is also the country with most incarcerated citizens in the world, being African American, Hispanics or whites. United States also represents about 5 percent of the world population, it’s also houses about 25 percent of the whole world population. Not so obvious that the percentage of black Americans in jail accounts for the same percentage of any race in United States in jail, now. The number increases every week according to the percent increase of high school and college drop outs per city, the same percentage after dropping from school do not engage in any relevant job, but illegal activities and vandalism leading to their incarceration at a tender age.” United states in the
Parenti (1999) and Dyer (2000) have argued that government and citizens were profiting from the mass incarceration of principally African Americans and Hispanics. The length of African American prison term is about 25% longer than for a white offender (Brooks,
Mass incarceration is the way that the United States has locked up millions of people over the last forty years using unnecessary and disproportionate policies. Contrary to popular belief, this is racially fueled as most of these policies saw to it that blacks and latinos be locked up for longer than their white peers and for smaller crimes. These racist roots within the system can be traced back to when the first slave ship arrived in the US. But our first major prison boom was seen after the American Civil war. I know that the Civil War was far more than forty years ago.
Indeed, minorities represent a far greater population of prisoners than majorities. Currently, people of color make up 60% of the United States prison system, though they represent only 12% of the total population (Hagler). The mass incarceration of minorities is a crisis sweeping the nation, tearing multitudes of minorities from their homes and jobs. “More than two million African Americans are currently under the control of the criminal-justice system—in prison or jail, on probation or parole. During the past few decades, millions more have cycled in and out of the system; indeed, nearly 70 percent of people released from prison are rearrested within three years” ( Alexander).
The discrimination in the jail system has come in many ways including race, gender, and religion discrimination. This has been shown by the fact that “history teaches that sometimes individuals are treated differently because of the racial, ethnic, or gender group to which they belong.”
People of all different races and ethnicities are locked behind bars because they have been convicted of committing a crime and they are paying for the consequences. When looking at the racial composition of a prison in the United States, it does not mimic the population. This is because some races and ethnicities are over represented in the correctional system in the U.S. (Walker, Spohn, & DeLone, 2018). According Walker et al. (2018), African-Americans/Blacks make up less than fifteen percent of the U.S. population, while this race has around thirty-seven percent of the population in the correctional system today.
Mass Incarceration Through the Era of Colorblindness In the New Jim Crow, Michelle Alexander portrayed a strong and provocative evaluation of the mass incarceration in the United States. When writing this book Alexander wanted to achieve to bring up a much needed conversation of the role that the criminal justice system had in the creation of this new racial caste system as well as show how the consequences of being labeled a felon have simply redesigned the old Jim Crow. She aimed towards the audience of other civil rights activists who hope to work towards racial justice, those of which she believes will be skeptical of what she has to say.
Her central thesis is that mass incarceration is “The New Jim Crow,” or the new system of control used by the government to uphold racial class in the U.S. This book will be helpful to my research because it directly discusses the topic of race and the criminal justice system. Amnesty International. (2003). United States of America: Death by discrimination
Over the decades, mass incarceration has become an important topic that people want to discuss due to the increasing number of mass incarceration. However, most of the people who are incarceration are people of color. This eventually leads to scholars concluding that there is a relationship between mass incarceration and the legacy of slavery. The reason is that people of color are the individuals who are overrepresented in prison compared to whites. If you think about it, slavery is over and African Americans are no longer mistreated; however, that is not the case as African Americans continue to face oppression from the government and police force.
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.
Over 2 million people are currently being held in United States prisons, and while the U.S. may only hold 5% of the world’s population, it houses 25% of its prisoners. In the past few years, America’s prison system has fallen under public scrutiny for it’s rising incarceration rate and poor statistics. Many Americans have recently taken notice of the country’s disproportionate prisoner ratio, realized it’s the worst on the planet, and called for the immediate reformation of the failing system. The war on drugs and racial profiling are some of the largest concerns, and many people, some ordinary citizens and others important government figures, are attempting to bring change to one of the country 's lowest aspects.