The article written by Donald Cohen talks about how Americans, citizens and policy makers alike, feel that the privatization of prisons is worsening the criminal justice system. The article stated about a consensus that mass incarceration is not safe nor beneficial for our communities. This conflicts with the interests of corporations, such as CCA and GEO, who would benefit in the increase of incarceration rates. Private prison corporations currently play a part in multiple aspects of the criminal justice policy process. A new campaign called ‘Programs Not Profits,’ is advocating for the money that go to private prisons and investing it in more job training, substance abuse treatment, and mental health care. ‘Programs Not Profits’ is only one…
executed by lethal injection. Prior to being executed, Carlos had spent some time in prison,…
Prison Industrial Complex (PIC) is a term used to describe the overlapping interests of government and industry that use surveillance, policing, and imprisonment as solutions to social, economic, and political problems. Angela Davis is a journalist and American political activist who believes that the U.S practice of super-incarceration is closer to new age slavery than any system of criminal justice. She defines the PIC as biased for criminalizing communities of color and used to make profit for corporations from the prisoner’s suffering. In her book, Are Prisons Obsolete?, she argues that the prison systems are no longer in use and out of date since prisons just keep increasing as…
Alexander does make a very strong argument for her premise, I found her most troubling argument to be that of the underlying conspiracy by whites, particularly the establishment, against people of color. Ms. Alexander argues that the birth of mass incarceration began in the late 1960’s after the enactment of the Civil Rights Act removed most of the segregational laws in place at the time. According to Alexander, in the search for another method of race control, the establishment sought to allay the fears of rising crime rates with more stringent penalties for violent crime and particularly drug possession; which correlated to the increase in violent crime (Alexander, 2010). This was the path to the future “war on drugs” and the spark that led to the mass incarceration solution. Forman, in his piece challenging Alexander’s analogy, alleges that the crime rates the FBI was reporting were not, as Alexander alleges, misreported; that the street crime rate did quadruple in the years from 1959-1971 (Forman, 2012). Forman also counters Alexander’s conspiracy argument with the fact that it was black activists who were clamoring most for stiffer punishment for convicted criminals, as a way of trying to improve the deplorable living conditions in the inner city areas (Foreman, 2012). If black activists were the group most adamant about increasing sentences as a crime deterrent, how could there be a…
What is meant by mass incarceration is shown a american’s disproportionately high rate of imprisonment of young men. Some causes according to the reading of mass incarceration is that it generally deters crime and incapacitates offenders. However, it is not limited to weakening poor families and keeps them socially marginalized.…
Black and Brown youth are criminalized in the post-Fordist era as gangs. The codifications of gang members were justified through the implementations of laws and policies, which depend on ideology and discourse. The different type of laws that were written and enacted during the post-Fordist era made it easier to criminalize the surplus of labor and bodies. Furthermore, with the construction of prisons, the mass incarceration of Black and Brown bodies implies that the only way to control the surplus of labor and land is to cage communities into prisons. For this reason,…
During George H. Bush ‘s presidency 1989 -1993 there was again a surge in incarceration. His campaign exacerbated and like his predecessors criminalized the black person. The presidential campaign criminalization was specific in the name of Willie Horton but was generalized as all black persons. Former President Bush’s campaign was to be “tough on Crime”. The rate of incarcerated persons went from 759,000 to 1,279,200. Yes, another reason for the increase in prisons and due to the vast increase most states weren’t able to react with facilities and manpower as the privatized corporations so another gain for them.…
The drug war has delivered significantly unequal outcomes crosswise over racial gatherings, showed through racial segregation by law authorization and lopsided drug war wretchedness endured by groups of shading. In spite, of the fact, that rates of drug utilize and offering are practically identical crosswise over racial lines, non-white individuals are much more inclined to be halted, looked, captured, indicted, sentenced and detained for drug law infringement than are…
In Prison Writings in 20th Century, Franklin illuminates a positive correlation between poverty and incarceration after the 1929 stock market crash. Over a roughly ten-year period, the Great Depression elucidates an intersection of poverty and “criminality,” where impoverished conditions created behavioral responses that American society has criminalized. In addition, the crash created a profusion of cheap labor and therefore decreased the demand for prison labor. In 2008, the Great Recession destroyed countless people’s wealth, employment, and hope. The increase in poverty created by the recession should, according to the 1929 crash, also have a corresponding increase in incarceration and decrease in the use of prison labor. Yet incarceration…
In recent years, the United States has seen a striking increase in incarceration rates. Our country currently holds almost a quarter of the world’s prison population while accounting for less than 5% of the total world population. Because most of the neighborhoods that are targeted are poverty stricken and populated mostly by minorities, hispanics and blacks make up a disproportionate amount of the prison population when compared to non-hispanic whites. Along with the increase in incarceration rates among minorities, there has also been a great decrease in the number of nuclear families. According to data taken from 2001-2007, the nuclear family was present in about 57% of white families while it was only present in 41% of hispanic…
Since the year 1980 the numbers for incarcerated minorities has been staggering but for some reason they have always been higher than the whites. According to the new Census data, “In 1980, the number of blacks living in college dorms was roughly equal to the number in prison.” Following the years after 1980, minorities began to get a higher percentage each year, and these results are shown in the most recent census. Minorities and whites got treated differently when it came to suspecting crime and giving punishments for the crime especially after the war on drugs started. Throughout the years minorities in the U.S. are receiving high incarceration rates because of the drug war that eventually failed. People only blame the drug war to the reason why minorities have a high incarceration rate but there are more possible, exceptional reasons.…
The United States has the highest incarceration percentage in the world. Mass incarceration is the result of people breaking the laws or committing offenses. Bill Clinton and his administration was one of the presidents that led to a massive mass incarceration. He passed a bill that extended criminal offenses, and he also gave money to build new prisons. Mass incarceration is also a result of poverty and discrimination of African Americans. In the other hand, Drug law violations have been one of the main reasons why people are incarcerated.…
Incarceration rates in The United States have grown drastically and are rapidly increasing. About 5% of the population will, on average, serve a sentence of about 60 months or more in prison . This rise in incarceration rates has disproportionally affected women . From 1988 to 2008, the imprisonment rate for women has increased by 600%, while for men it has increased by 300% . Currently about 1 million women pass through prisons every year of about 3.2 million arrests. Out of these sentences, about 67% were drug convictions.…
In, “Beyond the Prison Bubble,” published in the Wilson Quarterly in the winter 2011, Joan Petersilia shows different choices about the imprisonment systems. The United States has the highest incarceration rate of any free nation (para.1). The crime rate over a thirty year span had grown by five times since 1960 to 1990. There are more people of color or Hispanics in federal and state institutions then there are of any other nationality. The prison system is growing more than ever; the growth in twenty years has been about 21 new prisons. Mass imprisonment has reduced crime but, has not helped the inmate to gradually return back to society with skills or education. But the offenders leaving prison now are more likely to have fairly long criminal records, lengthy histories of alcohol and drug abuse, significant periods of unemployment and homelessness, and physical or mental disability (par.12).…
America land of the free and home of the great, But in all reality is America as great is…