Explain What Factors Have Led To Increasing Incarceration Rates

What factors have led to increasing incarceration rates? How has this affected the United States economically and socially?
Life, as we know it today, isn't the way it was before because of the increase in incarceration rates within our nation; especially among our minority groups. When minority groups are mentioned, it's aimed towards people that are different from the social majority. Incarceration is the state of being confined in prison; imprisoned. There are various factors that have led to this dreadful increase. The cause of this climb in numbers of people being incarcerated are prisons profiting from the number of people being imprisoned, policies and practices, and most importantly, a wide range of criminal offenders. This dilemma
Who is affected? Is it gender or age specific? How long has it been around? Will this topic be relevant years from now? The global impact of course will be that money that’s needed to be invested in something much more essential to life would not be available because of the needs to fund these federal and state penitentiaries. Also, there would be less men in the outside world being successful at careers, family needs, and etc. In particular minority groups are affected the most if were really being technical and the families of these people being incarcerated are affected directly. According to Federal Bureau of Prisons, 18.3% of the prisoners are between the ages of 36-40 and 93.4% of them are males. So, generally speaking it is age and gender specific. Since approximately 2008 the increase in incarceration rates has been around regarding the source Bureau of Justice Statistics Prisoners Series. Hypothetically speaking, this topic of the increase in incarceration rates will be around for many years to come. However, if the government takes life changing actions in ways to decrease the sentencing of non-violent criminals, then there will be a potential decrease in