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Gender Stereotypes In Prisons

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According to data from The Sentencing Project, roughly 2.2 million people are in the United States’ jails and prisons. The United States is currently leading the world in incarceration rates, and this is no accident. There have been many laws, policies and attitudes brought forward that have resulted in this statistic. As a result, there are effects of the current prison system, and hardly any are positive. There is an overrepresentation in many aspects of the prison and jail population that are worth considering. Before understanding why prison has evolved to what it is today, the population of the inmates must be examined. Men of color make up most of the prison population, roughly 66% of it (The Sentencing Project). There are more men …show more content…

People are noticing the similarities in the prison population. America does seem to enjoy putting like groups of people in prison. Are these people innocent? Not always. However, is incarceration the answer to who society deems a menace, absolutely not. The overrepresentation of men and women of color, and people incarcerated for drug offenses are the effect of some changes that were made in the list forty years. Most of the people who are in prison are in prison for a reason, and that reason is because of sentencing policy. It is worth mentioning the jail and prison is sometimes the answer, however it should not be the answer for some low-level offenders. The recent laws and policy are the reasons why the prison and jail population have increased, and why people stay for longer. America has sent more people away to jails and prisons because of attitudes that shape laws and policy. The three strikes law has lots of people in prison for life that do not need to be in prison for life. Mandatory minimums are another reason that people go to prison for a longer periods of time. In the 1980’s, the expected time to serve in prison for a drug charge was an average of 22 months. By 2004, that number has almost increased three times (The Sentencing …show more content…

However, a similar attitude seems to be at the center of the explanation. American’s seem to have a lot of pride concerning their culture, and their country. American’s want perfection for their country, like most people do. However, America has over-criminalized crime, and seems to be obsessed with “cleaning up the streets.” Politician’s do not want to look lenient, and they want to be hard on crime. This has led to absolutely no prison advocacy. Despite politician’s best efforts, crime is here to stay. Funding prisons and jails is necessary, but no one seems to want to. American sends people to prison to forget about them, and to punish them. And rather than updating its attitudes on sentencing, policy makers are trying to come up with laws that are outdated, and unfit for modern

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