The U.S. Department of Justice estimates that in 2014 there were a total of 1,561,525 incarcerated people in the Federal and State prisons in United States. In the State of Texas there were a total of 166,043 prisoners under the state or federal correction (The Bureau of Justice Statistics of the U.S. Department of Justice, 2014). About 2.7 million children or 1 in 28 in the United State have a parent in prison or jail, the rate for African-American children is 1 in 9 (Federal Interagency Working Group for Children of Incarcerated Parents, 2014). This paper attempts to explore my own journey in understanding and applying social work to the community in an attempt to keep fighting for social justice. As part of my learning experience it is
This book discusses social issues such as Mass Incarceration within our society. Michelle Alexander is very qualified to discuss the controversial topics that are mentioned within the text. Alexander is a civil rights lawyer, a legal scholar and advocate. She has held many positions in higher
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.
As I researched the Kalief Browder story, many I discovered there were several social justice concerns that interconnect and violated basic human rights. The areas of concern consisted of: false imprisonment, housing a sixteen-year-old child with adults, solitary confinement, starvation, socio-economic disparities, failure of our legal system to protect and serve, and denial of proper mental health treatment even after several suicide attempts while in prison. According to MacIntyre (2016), justice is not made up of specific descriptors; the facts can be incongruent at times, but, yet each supplies a significant meaning to the acts of justice (Lebacqz, p. 9). This social injustice film was chosen innocently as a follow-up to a prior documentary
Issues of Social and Economic Justice Throughout my experience in the Panhandle Promise Project, I had the opportunity to closely examine the injustice many of the clients experience based on their race, economic status, or in the criminal justice system. Since the starting of America’s war on drugs longer sentencing for drug offences that in violent crimes, there has been an increase of the number of minorities who are currently in prison (Wormer, Kaplan, and Juby (2012). For the children having a parent incarcerated affects them in several different ways, such as having a higher risk of being place in foster care (Andersen and Wildeman, 2014) , poor school performance (Eddy et al., 2014), food insecurity (Turney, 2014c), antisocial behavioral problems (Jarjoura et al., 2011f). For women who have been release from prison new barriers limit the assistance they will received, the ineligibility for food stamps (Travis, 2002), and in some cases the loss of their children custody (Welsh, 2014b).
Although, the justice system impacts many lives, especially within the African American community many individuals are unaware of the effects that the Criminal Justice system can have on offender while incarcerated and even after incarceration. The reading is intended for anyone willing to learn about how are society uses Mass Incarceration as a method to hinder individuals of the African American community from being successful in our society. The author’s writing style is very informative. Michelle Alexander uses clarity and factual information to explain to the reader the many issues that are within our Criminal Justice system. Further, Michelle Alexander is very detailed with the information that she shares within the text.
The documentary the “13th” had shocking statistics on how many people are incarcerated in the United States. The 1970’s was the beginning of the “mass incarceration era,” which started with 357,292 people incarcerated. From there, the prison population has continuously increased and reached a population of 2,306,200 in 2014. Many of these people incarcerated are African-Americans because the criminal justice system has always worked against them. African-Americans in the United States account for 6.5% of the population, meanwhile they account for 42% of the prison population.
The Meaning of Freedom: And Other Difficult Dialogues written by Angela Davis explains her personal experiences growing up in Birmingham, Alabama during a time of racial segregation, capitalism and an unjust prison system. With the use of her personal experience and scholarly research, activist Davis investigates the institutionalized biases that support the criminal justice system in order to identify potential reforms that could result in a more just and equal society. In the chapter “The Prison Industrial Complex”, Davis highlights the relationship between the criminal justice system and people of color/immigrants. Several issues are addressed such as fear of crime and the reality of prisons, creation of public enemies, conditions which produce the prison industrial complex, structural connections and
Intersectionality is the idea that when certain group identities that have similar systems of oppression merge together, they form a group that is fundamentally different as a whole than from their respective groups. In the case of the Mexicans and the Filipinos and their involvement in the “United Farm Workers of America”, it proved to hinder the alliance that the two groups had with each other. Because of their differences in race and the language barrier, there was a divide that had formed between the two groups; the Mexicans were more favored in the union. The Mexicans were more represented and usually were tended to first, which was apparent when it came to power and money in the union. As a result, the Filipinos were often neglected when
The Progressive Era, from 1890- 1920 was an influential time in American history. There was political reform in an effort to bring about social justice, but it was also a time when big businesses thrived. However, in the past their prominence and power went unchecked, now liberal radicals started fighting for justice, making the government control the corporations before they destroyed the country. With big businesses growing at a quick pace, they needed more management, known as middle management, to control it. Alfred Chandler, a business professor, specifically a economist, analyzes this in chapter eight, “Mass Production” from his book, The Visible Hand: The Managerial Revolution in American Business.
After reading multiple works in my current prison literature class, I cannot help but to form questions and theories in regards to the literature we have read. After researching and studying the following pieces of literature: Focault’s Discipline and Punish, Thoreau’s Civil Disobedience, MLK’s Letter from Birmingham Jail, and the Angela Davis Autobiography, I have discovered ideas and questions that go beyond the pages. These pieces of literature are not only accounts, but ideas. These ideas are the spark and evidence to social change. The spark and the evidence help create protest.
In order to do this they need to make new centers to help prisoners inside better themselves. In Alabama prisons may soon shut down 14 of its prisons for overcrowding, neglect, and violence in the state’s correction systems. In the prison St. Clair Holman in Alabama the prison system makes prisoners act different. There is no safety, security or supervision. “We have people being killed, sexually assaulted, raped, stabbed on daily basis at St. Clair, Holman, and multiple facilities; it’s a systemwide problem,” said Charlotte Morrison, a senior attorney at the Equal Justice Initiative (EJI), which represents Alabama prisoner.”
Not only does Berstein call for an overall reform of this nation’s juvenile prisons, she goes as far as saying the practice of locking up youth is in need of a “more profound than incremental and partial reform” (13). The fact that Bernstein outlines the numerous failed strategies and goals of this practice with her compelling use of studies and statistics is enough to promote an audience to reject the practice of locking up youth. The statistic she shares that “four out of five juvenile parolees [will be] back behind bars within three years of release” as well as the studies she conducted on numerous instances when a guards abuse of power lead to the death of a child work to further prove her point: being that “institution[s] as intrinsically destructive as the juvenile prison” have no place in a modern society (13, 83). Bernstein refutes this false sense effectiveness further by sharing her own ideas on what she believes works as a much more humane solution to rehabilitating
Implications for this book include Santos’s desire to help fix the prison system and the mass incarceration issue the U.S is facing. Santos is also helping other that are being prosecuted by the failing system. Upon being released and piecing his life back together, Santos started his own foundation called the Michael G Santos foundation. Through this foundation, Santos is helping bring awareness to the socials issues that result from mass incarceration while also helping former prisoner transition and integrate successfully back into the work force. Through Santos’s hard work and commitment, Santos successfully helped Maine’s department of corrections enhance their prison system by the virtue of his own programs that he has developed post
Over 2 million people are currently being held in United States prisons, and while the U.S. may only hold 5% of the world’s population, it houses 25% of its prisoners. In the past few years, America’s prison system has fallen under public scrutiny for it’s rising incarceration rate and poor statistics. Many Americans have recently taken notice of the country’s disproportionate prisoner ratio, realized it’s the worst on the planet, and called for the immediate reformation of the failing system. The war on drugs and racial profiling are some of the largest concerns, and many people, some ordinary citizens and others important government figures, are attempting to bring change to one of the country 's lowest aspects.
The partnership social work and the justice system can provide needed services to offenders and victims. Social workers will contribute in aspects like counselling, employment, housing and food. It is becoming obvious that incarceration itself can not solve the problem. Social workers can pass on their experience and be part of public policy planning and the legislative process (Treger, H & Allen, F 2006).