Mass Incarceration Sociology

Mass incarceration has many costs associated with it besides for the punishment of the offender. For many people, they have no idea how badly an incarceration can destroy someones entire life, and family. Mass incarceration affects everyone, the offender, their family, and the entire community as a whole. I believe that there are three major consequences and costs that are encored by mass incarceration, and they each effect either the offender, their family, or the seemingly unrelated community. When a husband or wife goes to prison, nearly 65% of family are then unable to pay for basic needs such as food and housing. 70% of these families have children under the age of 18 that they are caring for. Thus, with a large chunk, if not all, of their income missing, the family is no longer able to provide for themselves, or their children, let alone support there imprisoned spouse. It is clear that in the majority of families, if a spouse is imprisoned, the family itself will fall apart and be unable to survive. Another study found that one-third of family’s reported that they went in debt by paying for visitation or phone calls, which is absurd. Getting
For example, many individuals are serving life sentences with out the possibility or parole for non-violent drug crimes. Some of these individuals may have sold a small amount of marijuana to an undercover officer, and have been sent to prison for life. While many individuals do deserve life without parole, the drastic increase of mass incarceration has blurred the process, and these people are not treated as individuals, but as numbers. They do not always receive a fair punishment, very often they receive life without parole for a drug charge. Those who have been incarcerated, and released, earn much less then their peers and even have a 3.5 times higher mortality rate then there