Disadvantages Of Mass Incarceration

In America, 2.3 million people are in prison. American has the highest prison population in the world. This is due to “tough on crime laws” that have been enforced since the 1960’s. Although these laws do help keep crime off the street, they have done more harm than good for our country. Mass incarceration is a major issues in America, it leads to poverty, broken families, money wasted, and many other problems.

Recent reports from the Vera Institute of Justice calculated annual average cost per inmate to be $31,286 upwards to $60,076 in specific states. Overcrowded prisons lead to unsafe profit prison expansions, more taxpayer money spent on incarceration rather than education, and perpetuating the cycle of poverty to incarceration. The United States has more people incarcerated than any country on earth, more than communist china, which is an authoritarian country four times the size of America. There is no doubt that overcrowding exists in America. The private prison industry has been on the rise.

In Oklahoma however, drug offenders share about 30 percent of their prison population. Ending the War on Drugs will not end mass incarceration alone. The federal government and a handful of states have successfully reduced their incarcerated populations by reforming their drug policies, and these can also work with other policies as

First, New York taxpayers were spared a program that would not have produced its intended results. The low recidivism rates of participating prisoners conceal the fact that such prisoners are less inclined, even without completing college coursework, to return to crime. Many possess some baseline education and are highly motivated to increase their human capital while incarcerated. Furthermore, participation is voluntary and graduation is not mandatory. With the state socializing the costs of prison education, New York’s average per-prisoner expenses would increase.

Although Gopnik doesn’t provide a concrete solution for this problem, he does emphasize the significance for finding a solution. The incarceration rate in 1980 was 220/100,000, but by 2010, it has more than tripled to 731/100,000. The United States is the only country to have that dramatic increase. Gopnik compares the time that’s spent in prison and the crime associated with it.

Though the prisoners are not there for a comfortable and enjoyable stay, ethical rights are being ignored. How can a someone carry out their sentence rightfully if the focus is taken away from them and put on the judgment of the courts and justice system? Prison overcrowding is without a doubt problematic and inhumane. The mandatory sentencing laws, lack of attention on

Over the last thirty years, the prison population in the United States has increased more than seven-fold to over two million people, including vastly disproportionate numbers of minorities and people with little education. For some racial and educational groups, incarceration has become a depressingly regular experience, and prison culture and influence pervade their communities. Almost 60 percent of black male high school drop-outs in their early thirties have spent time in prison. In Punishment and Inequality in America, sociologist Bruce Western explores the recent era of mass incarceration and the serious social and economic consequences it has wrought.

The main idea that Marc Mauer was discussing during his lecture was about the American prison system needs to be fix. America has the largest prisoner population in a develop country. The main issue is that people of color has a greater chance to be in jail because the environment they were raised in. Some people of higher class have the income to help them not receive any sentences while a person of color may have a greater chance to go to jail due to the lack of access of resources. People who are send to jail they receive a harsh prison sentence because some places have a three strike system.

Mentally ill offenders comprise a huge segment of the country 's prison populace, bringing about various difficulties to correctional administrators who lack formal preparation or instruction on the best way to communicate, look after, and secure this specific populace (Pittaro, 2017). Correctional administrators confront a large group of difficulties with regards to mentally ill inmates. These particular inmates require more supervision and more care with respect to their prosperity in the correctional facility that they reside in. In most facility, the mentally ill prisoners are restricted to the minimum about of counseling services which may prompt troublesome practices. As indicated by an article written by Lloyd I. Sederer, M.D., "All patients have both a right to treatment and a right to refuse treatment (Sederer, n.d).”

While "tough on crime" policies may be effective in incapacitating offenders, little consideration has been given to the impact this mass incarceration effort has had on offenders following their release from prison. Every year more than 600,000 people are released from jails and prisons to face the challenge of re-entering society in a productive capacity (Geiger, 2006; Travis, Solomon, & Waul, 2001). Due to the collateral consequences of a criminal conviction, reintegration is often met with a host of daunting and unnecessary barriers. Black Americans comprise a major segment of the neglected population and when they are released from prison the barriers to reintegration are often compounded by the stigma of their racial classification and the mark of a criminal

(Michelle Alexander, 2010:58) The three strikes law targeted the communities affluent with minority groups. At the turn of the 21st century the majority that entered the prison system were African Americans and Latinos. (Michelle Alexander, 2010) The reason behind mass incarceration was due to the crack down on the deteriorating communities where the majority of minorities lived. Authors Scott Ehlers, Vincent Schiraldi and Jason Ziedenberg of Still Striking Out: Ten Years of California’s Three Strikes (2004) report that African Americans in prison because of the three strike law is higher per every 100,000 African American than Whites and Latinos in California. (U.S. Census Bureau

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.

One fourth of the prisoners suffer from major depression and one fifth suffer psychosis

In this article, “Prison addiction: why mass incarceration policies must change” the author, Madden, Denis J, is stating that the reason of drug addict, are higher unemployment rate, poor education, and poverties. 2: At first, he is giving the example Baltimore city. 3: That too many people sentenced by nonviolence drug abuse causing a lot of problem in the society, because the prison is not giving proper guidance to inmates. 4:

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.