Essay On Mass Incarceration
Mass Incarceration
A current topic that is currently facing our national government is mass incarceration, also known as mass imprisonment or the prison boom. What is important about this topic is that if we don’t figure out how to fix this problem, the population of those in prison will continue to rise. Those imprisoned are mainly made up of minorities, specifically African American men who live in poverty, non-wealthy and disadvantaged neighborhoods; the ghetto. Although the numbers of imprisonment have increased by fifty percent since the 1970’s, those may believe that there is less crime, although studies show contrary. Public safety has still not improved, and recidivism rates are still high.
In 2014, African Americans made up over …show more content…
According to Christopher Wildeman, in his article Mass Incarceration, “New research shows that incarceration is now a much less effective method for crime control than it was before the 1990s.” The unfortunate reality is that drug-related convictions which are considered non-violent crime, is the most important cause for why prison populations are increasing in the United States. Those who are found at fault for a large percentage of these drug crimes are minorities. President Obama stated that, “[t]he real reason our prison population is so high is that over the last few decades, we’ve locked up more and more nonviolent drug offenders than ever before, for longer than ever before.” The article, The Truth about Mass Incarceration states, “[t]hey blame our prison boom on punitive, ever-longer sentences tainted by racism, particularly for drug …show more content…
In her new book, The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness, she also blames the prison boom on the War on Drugs. She states, “In less than thirty years, the U.S. penal population exploded from around 300,000 to more than 2 million, with drug convictions accounting for the majority of the increase.” And the War on Drugs was supposedly driven by coded racial appeals, in which elite whites galvanized poor whites to vote Republican by scapegoating black drug addicts. It does not lie with criminals or violence. Violent crime is not responsible for the prison boom. With marijuana now being legal in California and other states, hopefully there will be a reduce in minor drug
A current topic that is currently facing our national government is mass incarceration, also known as mass imprisonment or the prison boom. What is important about this topic is that if we don’t figure out how to fix this problem, the population of those in prison will continue to rise. Those imprisoned are mainly made up of minorities, specifically African American men who live in poverty, non-wealthy and disadvantaged neighborhoods; the ghetto. Although the numbers of imprisonment have increased by fifty percent since the 1970’s, those may believe that there is less crime, although studies show contrary. Public safety has still not improved, and recidivism rates are still high.
In 2014, African Americans made up over …show more content…
According to Christopher Wildeman, in his article Mass Incarceration, “New research shows that incarceration is now a much less effective method for crime control than it was before the 1990s.” The unfortunate reality is that drug-related convictions which are considered non-violent crime, is the most important cause for why prison populations are increasing in the United States. Those who are found at fault for a large percentage of these drug crimes are minorities. President Obama stated that, “[t]he real reason our prison population is so high is that over the last few decades, we’ve locked up more and more nonviolent drug offenders than ever before, for longer than ever before.” The article, The Truth about Mass Incarceration states, “[t]hey blame our prison boom on punitive, ever-longer sentences tainted by racism, particularly for drug …show more content…
In her new book, The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness, she also blames the prison boom on the War on Drugs. She states, “In less than thirty years, the U.S. penal population exploded from around 300,000 to more than 2 million, with drug convictions accounting for the majority of the increase.” And the War on Drugs was supposedly driven by coded racial appeals, in which elite whites galvanized poor whites to vote Republican by scapegoating black drug addicts. It does not lie with criminals or violence. Violent crime is not responsible for the prison boom. With marijuana now being legal in California and other states, hopefully there will be a reduce in minor drug