Paternal Incarceration Summary

more likely to be imprisoned, their children are more likely to grow up without a father. When the father is taken away, the family’s income decreases resulting in financial strain. Moreover, this strain makes it harder for the family to keep a relationship with their father while he is in prison. Phone calls to prisons are expenses as well as visits. The cycle begins with fathers but has continued to move from generation to generation because, “Paternal incarceration is associated with behavior problems and delinquency, especially among boys.” Ta Nehisi Coates does not state direct solutions. Rather, he inform his readers that the question Moynihan introduced has not disappeared. Mr. Coates states the question is more urgent than ever. It is interesting that Moynihan also never included solutions or recommendations in his report. Both authors did this for a reason. There are many, many actions that can be taken to improve the lives of black people. The authors did not want to limit their readers to thinking about a few solutions. The purpose of both of their pieces seems to be to inspire other people to become passionate about the same topic. If they are

This high population rate is not good for anyone, in or outside the walls of these confinements. Overcrowded prisons undoubtedly create worse conditions for the prisoners. For the rest of us, as taxpayers it is very costly to fund all of these facilities. I suggest we rethink our current concept of prisons. As, I am interested disgusting racial discrimination, I will focus on the African American prisoners, but the benefits I will discuss are not secluded to one group. As learned from Ta Nehisi, in the 1970s African Americans started to fill cells more than their counter parts, simultaneously he tells us “rehabilitation was largely abandoned in favor of retribution- the idea that prison should not reform convicts but punish