Essay On Mass Incarceration

For the past several decades, the mass incarcerated population has more than doubled since 1970’s (DuVernay, 13th). Mass incarceration is the act of placing a bunch of people in prisons, detention centers, and correction facilities. Usually, the people affected are people of color, the reasoning behind placing people in these situations is because of misdemeanors, for the sake of putting people in prison or because of their status. Because of these conducts by law enforcers, the population of the imprisoned is growing exponentially that the prison systems and detention centers are not giving proper amenity and placing people wherever they want. The era of mass incarceration began when the government started the goal getting criminals off the street.The war on drugs was signed by former President Nixon with the intention of finding people who
The policy incited police brutality and placing people in prisons because of assumptions and lack of money. When one looks at the background of the prison population, it can be determined that most of the people in prison are people of color and the poor. In the state of Oregon, a group of researchers conducted an experiment that will answer the question: were “the racial and ethnic… gaps the result of discriminatory processing decisions by decision-makers in the system” (Roberts 1278). Two main results came to light. One group argues that “African Americans are overrepresented in the prison population because they commit more crime” (Roberts 1278). This conclusion states debunk the argument that the colored population in the prison system is because of the number of people that chose to commit crimes. On the other hand, another result goes more in depth and