Prison Growth in American from 1970-2008
Why has there been a massive growth of the prison industry in America since the 1970 's?
Since the 1970 's there has been steady increase in the prison population where statistics now show from the BJS that more than one in every 100 adults are now in imprisoned. Statistics from the "PEW" state that one in 30 men between the ages of 20-34 are behind bars, however just because there is an increase in the numbers it does not mean it 's down to an increase in crime. To further emphasise just how significant the growth is, the population in 1970 was around 300,000 but now the population in 2008 is over 2.3 million (BJS 2006). However there is not necessarily a parallel increase with crime; instead experts are putting the growth down to popular measures such as the "three-strikes", "truth in sentencing" and "broken window" policies. Different states have diverse policies and so when talking about America as a whole it is hard to talk about the prison industry as a whole, due to the fact that each state makes the line fluxuate.
During the 1970 's Nixon endeavoured to be "tough on crime" however since that pledge the population his risen at least 6 times. There were significant tax cuts which resulted in social decay thus the chance for economic opportunities and possibility to purse the "American Dream" deteriorated. Therefore the rise in petty crime and drug use heavily increased. This can be backed up by statistics from the U.S. Department of Justice which illustrates an increase from 63,140 in 2000 to 77,987 in 2006 of inmates held in state and federal jails for petty crimes. If you were to apply Merton 's "Strain Theory" in some states the most obvious way to achieve success would be to become a drug dealer consequently resulting in crime which does appeal to many people, hence by Clinton and Bush reducing tax meant that there would be a significant increase in the prison industry.
The government has tried to battle this rise in the prisons by imposing
Since the 1970 's there has been steady increase in the prison population where statistics now show from the BJS that more than one in every 100 adults are now in imprisoned. Statistics from the "PEW" state that one in 30 men between the ages of 20-34 are behind bars, however just because there is an increase in the numbers it does not mean it 's down to an increase in crime. To further emphasise just how significant the growth is, the population in 1970 was around 300,000 but now the population in 2008 is over 2.3 million (BJS 2006). However there is not necessarily a parallel increase with crime; instead experts are putting the growth down to popular measures such as the "three-strikes", "truth in sentencing" and "broken window" policies. Different states have diverse policies and so when talking about America as a whole it is hard to talk about the prison industry as a whole, due to the fact that each state makes the line fluxuate.
During the 1970 's Nixon endeavoured to be "tough on crime" however since that pledge the population his risen at least 6 times. There were significant tax cuts which resulted in social decay thus the chance for economic opportunities and possibility to purse the "American Dream" deteriorated. Therefore the rise in petty crime and drug use heavily increased. This can be backed up by statistics from the U.S. Department of Justice which illustrates an increase from 63,140 in 2000 to 77,987 in 2006 of inmates held in state and federal jails for petty crimes. If you were to apply Merton 's "Strain Theory" in some states the most obvious way to achieve success would be to become a drug dealer consequently resulting in crime which does appeal to many people, hence by Clinton and Bush reducing tax meant that there would be a significant increase in the prison industry.
The government has tried to battle this rise in the prisons by imposing
Bibliography: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/02/28/AR2008022801704_pf.html Marc Mauer (2003) COMPARATIVE INTERNATIONAL RATES OF INCARCERATION [online] Available from: http://www.soros.org/initiatives/justice/articles_publications/publications/intl_incarceration_20030620/intl_rates.pdf Human Rights Watch Backgrounder (2003) Incarcerated America [online] Available from: http://www.hrw.org/backgrounder/usa/incarceration/ Naomi Spencer (2006) US prison population continues to soar in 2005 [online] Available from: Young, J (2004) The New Politics of Crime and Punishment. 1st ed. Willan Publishing. Urahn, S (2008) PEW One in 100: Behind Bars in America 2008 (Report) Sabol, W (2007) Prisoners in 2006. U.S. Dept. of Justice. BJS Statistics (Report) Bratton, J (2002) Prison officers rack up overtime Stone, M (2005) World Prison brief. 2nd ed. Park Publishing.