The Negative Effects Of Mass Incarceration

Today, more than one out of every 100 Americans is behind bars, and the US has the largest prison population in the world. Prison overcrowding not only affects the economy but it causes issues within the prison as well. According to Angela Davis, “Prison overcrowding leads to several issues such as racial tensions, filth, or stress… which is an obstacle to rehabilitation work, therefore more inmates will come back into prison shortly after their release”.

One theory that can explain the topic of Mass Incarceration is that people are being sent to jail more and more for a longer period of time. Also, there is an obvious and high rate imprisonment within the community of color. For many years we have been told that the number one reason for increasing rates of incarceration is due to the war on drugs but in recent years we are learning through statistics that it not just drugs. Legislating has passed many new and tougher sentencing laws over the past 35 years. To explain prison growth, in state prisons 90 percent of prisoners only about 17 percent of incarcerated are due to drug offenses.

Due to the judicial policies getting tougher on issues such as drug offenses and what they consider felonies, more and more people are going to prison. As of now, the United States has the highest rate of incarcerations. The inmates themselves are not only the only ones affected; 2.8 million children are left behind in the country after their parents are arrested (The Effects of Parental Incarceration on Children: Needs and Responsive Services). Children of incarcerated parents do not really get the attention they need, leaving them to face many problems alone. These children tend to develop mental illnesses, awkward social skills, and they function very different than a child with a normal home setting.

Michelle Alexander’s book, The New Jim Crow, summarizes the justice and prison systems as an unfair institutions that push low-level offenders into detention centers with harsh sentences due to the “tough on crime” stance of major politicians on both sides of the aisle. Alexander brings up the case of Florida vs Bostick, where stop-and-frisk procedures have somewhat violated the fourth amendment. In Bostick’s case the US Supreme Court believed that if he were a “reasonable person”, he could have refused the search, but most do not realize that arrests can still take place, even in a reasonable situation, when someone does not comply with an officer. As crazy at it may seem, the innocent in some cases often go unheard because of the fear, power, and lack of resources to fight back. Many succumb to pleading guilty and never have the opportunity to speak with a lawyer or public defender.

The overcrowding in prisons itself is a major problem. According to the Crime and Punishment: A History video, in South Carolina more citizens are in prison than any state in America, which have more citizens in prison than any country in the world. Although the population in prisons are getting out of hand, they’re several ways to approach this problem. For instance, getting rid of the

I have selected this problem because many previous governments have ignored this problem and due to this ignorance this problem is getting worse day by day. I also have selected this issue base on a fact that 15.79% is the poverty rate of America which is the highest among all the developed countries. It means that poverty rate is highest in United States than all other developed countries. This problem has both social and economical concerns. This problem is also creating some other problems in American such as increase crime rate is also because of poverty.

Overcrowded prison has been a serious problem facing our correctional facilities for decades (Haney, 2006). By not having the adequate space and support to satisfy the detainees’ needs for rehabilitation will result in prisoners leaving the system unprepared for civilian life, guaranteeing that former law-breaker will fall back into the prison system increasing the overcrowding problem. Secondly, by squeezing such a large number of the detainees into a space intended to just hold a specific amount of people stretches the possibilities of prisoners lashing out on prison guards causing riots resulting in unsafe conditions for both inmates and prison staff. As agreed by Governor of the state of California Edmund G Brown Jr, “In the last year,

In closing, human trafficking has taken the world by storm. It is a billion dollar business that seems to bring the worst out of people from the ones that are involved in the trafficking and the ones that are abusing the victims. Slavery ended in the early part of the 1800; however, more people are being forced into slavery in this day in age than ever before. The people that supports this type of criminal activity can be company CEO’s, royalty, athletes, celebrities, DOD employees, military or just the everyday citizen. Victims can be anyone even though mostly women and young girls are recruited; however, a small percentage of men and little boys are also victims.

Just think of how hard it is for them with no one to help them or guide them to survive and live. About 80% of those homeless children (12-21) use drugs or alcohol. The use of these things leads to kids going down the wrong path in life. According to estimates by the Urban Institute, nearly 1 in 5 youth under the age of 18 will run away at least once. Over 50% of young people in shelters and on the streets report that their parents told them to leave or knew they were leaving and didn’t care.

Introduction In the criminal justice system the goal is justice. To protect the people and punish and hopefully reform the people that have shown to threaten the greater good of society. Many people unwillingly become a part of the system. In the United States we have the largest incarceration rate compared to all developed countries. The national rate of incarceration for countries similar in size to the United States tends be around 100 prisoners per 100,000 population or 0.1 percent.