Incarcerated Americans face many challenges when they attempt to re-enter society. Inmates that are released from prison have no money, no job, and in many cases, no place to live. On top of these challenges former inmates face, they must also navigate the same pressures and temptations that landed them in the American prison system in the first place. To make matters worse, these ex-offenders are typically released into the same environment that they left when they were originally incarcerated, adding to the dangers of these temptations. The key elements that create a successful reentry into society post incarceration include; finding and keeping a solid, decent paying job, finding a safe place to live, preferably away from the dangers that
Teen pregnancy- Force teens into birth control as soon as the teen turns 13. Global Warming- Everyone gets electric cars so we don 't have to use fuel ever again.
The United States incarcerates more people than any country in the world, largely due to the war on drugs. Approximately 2.2 million Americans are incarcerated, which is more than any industrialized country in the world. The article “Why Incarceration Matters: Rethinking Crisis, Decline, and Transformation in Postwar” focuses on the criminalization of “urban space” and the imposed measures of lengthy prison terms for minor petty crimes. The author Thompson discusses the origins of the urban crisis beginning with the inception of Lyndon’s Law Enforcement Administration Act of 1964, which also influenced the mass incarceration policies during Reagan’s Presidency. The article continues to elaborate on the decline of the labor movement and how
My findings focused on the points that mass incarceration substantially affects families and jobs, which then become factors in the issue of recidivism. Moreover, these problems especially target minorities at high rates. To strengthen these points, I could have done more interviews, especially with past convicts or convicts who have returned to jail in order to get more first-hand experiences. As well as interviews with different ages of children exposed to incarceration to see if or how the effects differed. In the future, I hope to expand on the other ways incarceration affects lives, such as through health, especially mental health, or college opportunities.
Mass incarceration is somewhat overlooked by those on the outside and those who are on the inside are considered forgotten about and viewed as less than. But the reality is, these high rates of imprisonment effect many areas of the community. Not to mention the social costs linked to the communities from which these immense population of felons come from. Pattillo, Weiman, & Western, 2006 analyzes how this disregarded population can sometimes increase criminal statistics after the prisoners return into the same community they left – which is another point rarely ever talked about. Other than the invisible consequences that mass incarceration provides, there are even more myriad studies offered surrounding this topic, identified in The Prison
As our society has grown in a multitude of ways, it has remained the same concerning the systematic treatment of minority groups, especially African American people. Michelle Alexander, the author of The New Jim Crow, writes about how America has encouraged and allowed the rebirth of a new caste system through implementation of mass incarceration (2011). The creation of this new system, only backed the critical race theory that argues white racism is constructed socially and historically in America (Simba 2015). She outlines that slavery and Jim Crow laws have been redesigned into the war on drugs which has allowed the police to target communities of color and therefore keep blacks in a position of inferiority. Many factors come into play
Deliver a Speech on Incarceration 1 What percentage of U.S. adults are currently incarcerated? What is their demographic make-up (age, sex, race, class)? A percentage of 0.5% of the United States population is incarcerated.
Slavery, Jim Crow, the ghetto, and the carceral apparatus are all structural institutions that share a mutual beneficial relationship where each has supplemented and historically progressed into more advanced subtle forms of oppression and racism. Past and current regimes served as social functions with the objective of encompassing African Americans in a permanent subordinate position. In each generation, newer developments of a racial caste emerge with the same objective of repudiating African Americans citizenship. The only thing that has changed since Jim Crow is the language we use to justify racial exclusion (Alexander, 2). These four regimes are genealogically linked because they all advanced and developed from one another.
While at St. Gertrude, Rose would often wander away and have sexual encounters with men. Staff noticed her condition worsening during her time at the school. Dr Bertram S Brown, the former Director of the National Institute of Mental Health, documented that “a neurological disturbance or disease of some sort seemingly had overtaken her and it was becoming The United States incarcerates more people than any other developed nation. While the U.S. population has doubled since the 1950s, the population in state and federal prisons has swollen by over eight hundred percent during that time period. Several policies have resulted in the today’s mass incarnation rates, causing absurd financial strains to state and national budgets that deflect taxpayer money from much needed services, in order to pay for the housing of incarcerated individuals.
A shift is happening in America. The pendulum is swinging from the ideals of get tough and mass incarceration. The swing has both positive and negative affects on the prison system. On the plus side, prison populations are decreasing. By shifting away from incarcerating any who break the law, there are fewer drug dealers and fewer violent offenders in the system.
Life after incarceration, here today gone tomorrow. 95% of adults sentenced to prison will return to our communities, and reentry will be their first step back into society. Imagine have a thousand questions flooding one’s mind all at once. Where will I live, how will I survive, and contribute to the family, while maintaining to the stipulations of one’s parole/ probation, without risking freedom. The number one goal for those newly released back into society by way of the reentry program is to never return to the inside of a prison cell.
One theory that can explain the topic of Mass Incarceration is that people are being sent to jail more and more for a longer period of time. Also, there is an obvious and high rate imprisonment within the community of color. For many years we have been told that the number one reason for increasing rates of incarceration is due to the war on drugs but in recent years we are learning through statistics that it not just drugs. Legislating has passed many new and tougher sentencing laws over the past 35 years. To explain prison growth, in state prisons 90 percent of prisoners only about 17 percent of incarcerated are due to drug offenses.
There are currently around 37,000 prisoners in Australia and over 2, 200, 000 in America, populations that have both been increasing greatly in the past decade. 1 2 Therefore more people every year face the immediate concern of rebuilding life, upon release from correctional facilities, and the stigma that will follow them forever. It is the government’s duty to make the transition from prison to society as effective as possible, and to help prisoners become active members of society. Although both America and Australia have strategies that function both inside and out of prisons there are many flaws that are present in these systems. One thing both countries have realised is that it is important to start the process of reintegration
Finding a suitable place to live can be further complicated by not having gainful employment to sustain the offender’s cost of living. According to the research of Orrick and Vieraitis, (2015), there are some promising results found in evaluations of job assistance programs that combine pre, and post-release services coupled with agencies incentives for hiring ex-offenders. Notwithstanding income may meet short-term needs of ex-offenders, but Martin (2011) contends that financial literacy and asset ownership should cut down on recidivism. The biggest obstacle is the lack of education and work experience most especially for young offenders (Martin, 2011). The literature points to the lack of income and the inability to attain financial freedom legally as one of the primary variables that cause ex-offenders to reoffend.
The current system that incarcerates people over and over is unsustainable and does not lower the crime rate nor encourage prisoner reformation. When non-violent, first time offenders are incarcerated alongside violent repeat offenders, their chance of recidivating can be drastically altered by their experience in prison. Alternative sentencing for non-violent drug offenders could alleviate this problem, but many current laws hinder many possible solutions. Recently lawmakers have made attempts to lower the recidivism rates in America, for example the Second Chance Act helps aid prisoners returning into society after incarceration. The act allows states to appropriate money to communities to help provide services such as education, drug treatment programs, mental health programs, job corps services, and others to aid in offenders returning to society after incarceration (Conyers, 2013).