Fema During Hurricane Katrina Essay

As of September 2011, California incarcerated close to 144,000 inmates in its state prisons. This number fell in recent years owing to the pressure from SCOTUS and California policy changes. In 2006, California had a peak incarceration rate of 172,000 inmates (Rogan, 2012). Since 1970, California has seen 750% rise in incarceration levels, especially during the “war on drugs” campaign during the 1990s (Harvard Law Review, 2010, p. 753). With no end in sight to the rapidly growing number of inmates in California’s state prisons, the CDCR was challenged to manage the growing population.

Once again, Katrina resulted in over two thousand deaths, damaged approximately ninety thousand square miles, and cost over one hundred and forty-five billion dollars. Many survivors blamed the federal, state, and local government for the extremely slow response and lack of resources to handle such a tragedy. Thus, the US President authorized the Department of Defense to create DSCA, which authorizes the US Military to work in conjunction with FEMA in response to national disasters. This action allowed the federal, state, and local governments to develop an action plan known as the National Guidance of Preparedness, signed into law in August 2011. The NGP is considered doctrine for the Active and Reserve Military’s role in assisting the state and local government’s ability to prepare, respond, and recover the affected areas.

Jobs applications, Financial Aid, Public Housing, and food stamps applications often ask for citizen’s criminal records, stigmatizing those who came out of the system, robbing them of opportunities. It’s very hard to find employment, convicts are all treated the same regardless of crime. In The New Jim Crow, the author talks about how young blacks are more likely to go to jail than college due to the system of incarceration. In fact, she cites a source that explains that in 2001, there were more blacks in the Illinois state prison, then there were in the state’s public universities, on drug charges alone. So forty years after the drug war was first declared, it still goes on, normalized by the commentary in media, and stereotypes assigned to those who serve time in correctional facilities.

This problem is getting worse and worse by the years and even former president Barrack Obama commented- “Over the last few decades, we’ve locked up more and more nonviolent offenders than ever before. Longer than ever before and that is the real reason our prison population is so high.” The United States has imprisoned more than 25 percent of all the prisoners in the world, even though we only have about 5 percent of the world’s population.

Yet, when it’s citizens and residents struggle to survive on a day to day basis, it reflects poorly on the nation itself. An important case of poor government oversight lies in the criminal justice system. In the case of the Freddie Gray riots of Baltimore, there was an issue regarding the bail for Freddie Gray’s murderers and a rioter. The court had set the bail for the rioter at $500,000 for a variety of charges ranging from minor theft to destruction of property. Yet, the most disturbing part of this story is that Freddy Gray’s murderers were actually charged significantly less.

Foster care is unfavorable to American society, because “according to national statistic 40 to 50 percent of those children will never complete high school. Sixty-six percent of them will be homeless, go to jail or die within one year of leaving the foster care system at 18.” “80 percent of the prison population once was in foster care, and that girls in foster care are 600 percent more likely than the general population to become pregnant before the age of 21.” BRITTANY NUNN (2012), author of Statistics Suggest Bleak Futures for Children Who Grow up in the Foster Care

Socioeconomic Structures Explain how various socio economic conditions (e.g.,international competition, prejudice, unfavourable economic conditions, military occupation/rule) operate to increase poverty How does Welfare increase poverty? The United States Federal Government spent over $477 billion on over 50 different programs to fight poverty. That money does not count for welfare spending by state and local governments. Despite America’s effort there are still around 37 million Americans that live in Poverty America has spent over a trillion dollars since Lyndon Johnson declared War on Poverty in 1964. The poverty rate is perilously close to where started in 1964 Since 1996, 2.5 million families have left welfare programs, a

Chad Miller, Ph.D from southern Mississippi, pointed out that 61 percent of students fail to earn a degree from a community college in 6 years. If we apply the 61 percent of dropouts to the 80 billion dollars invested, then that would mean 48 billion would go down the drain. This is such a complicated matter meriting lots of investigation. Imagine what that 48 billion dollars could go to rather than being wasted. The United States cannot afford losing billions of dollars.

They had temporary owners, who were not interested in preserving their lives and health after the expiry of the contract. At any attempt to escape they were subjected to the most ferocious punishments, down to the death penalty. At the end of the contract period, which was usually during seven years, servants received clothes, a musket, and a little money. By the year 1610 in Virginia were brought about 500 settlers. But later, by the spring of that year, only 60 of them had survived.

There was a newspaper article by The Marshall Project. It is called “Why Jails Have More Suicides than Prisons.” By “Maurice Chammah and Tom Meagher.” This article came about from Justice Statistics. They are from 2000 to 2013, and they came to the surface again from Sandra Bland’s death in a Texas jail. In 2013, the rate of jails for suicide rate was “46 per 100,000” compared to prisons which was “15 per 100,000.” The reason why this happens is because in prisons you are already kicked out of society, and you know you will be there for a while. Unlike prisons, jails you are just thrown from society into jail, and not sure what to expect next.