Social Effects Of Mass Incarceration

The Mass Incarceration in the United States is a major topic of discussion in our society and has raised many questions about our criminal justice system. There are few topics disputed as much in criminal justice as the relationship between race, ethnicity, and criminal outcomes. Specifically, the large disparities that minorities face regarding incarceration in our country. Minorities such as Hispanics and African Americans are sentenced at far higher rates than their white counterparts. There are multiple factors that influence this such as the judicial system, racial profiling by law enforcement, and historical biases (Kamula, Clark-Coulson, Kamula, 2010). Additionally, the defendants race was found to be highly associated with either a jail or prison sentence; with the “odds increasing 29 percent for black defendants, and 44 percent for Hispanic defendants” (King, Johnson, McGeever, 2010).

The author discusses the price that US minority communities pay and the mass incarceration and the ideologies that fuel them. Interestingly, the author believes that mass incarceration only affects a certain group of people. Mass incarceration targets minority groups. These minority groups are characterized as low-income people. The author believes, that action has been taken to rectify the percentage of incarceration, because their low power compared to the majority. In addition, the authors go into percentages that depict that African American and Hispanic are targeted. Furthermore, the author looks at the ideologies that pertain to mass incarceration. Due to social injustice in the low-income communities presents negative ramifications

Following release, they lose the right to vote, access to public housing, eligibility for federal grants and loans, and a wide span of career options. While people of any race can be incarcerated, there is a disproportionate impact on low-income communities of color. Additionally, while mass incarceration is not an inherited status, children of inmates are three times more likely than other children to have a run-in with the law (Conway & Jones 2014). In essence, given that mass incarceration exhibits many of the same characteristics and impacts as American slavery, it appears to be an extension of the previous system.

The 36th annual Marion Wright Thompson Lecture Series on mass incarceration was great. I chose to attend this lecture because mass incarceration and experiences of it throughout history are important to me. In the Intro to Women’s & Gender Studies class that I previously took in the fall semester of 2015, I studied the relationship between mass incarceration and race for a bit. That inspired me to attend the Marion Wright Thompson Lecture. I had knowledge prior to the lecture, so I wanted to further understand how deeply mass incarceration affects society as a whole.

America is experiencing a social phenomenon commonly referred to as mass incarceration, in which the rate of incarceration has increased by, “...has grown by 700 percent.(Goffman)” in the last 40 years. Mass incarceration is difficult to digest in totality due to its immense nature, nuance and variety of answers with the essence of ‘could be right’. In order to decipher the complex puzzle of mass incarceration, we must establish borders to manifest clarifying order in the overwhelming clutter of data. Theory will assist in demonstrating how the general and specific facts of issues, in this case mass incarceration, relate by essentially declaring the philosophical frame of the interpretation. In order to gain a nuanced understanding of America’s mass incarceration, three relatively distinct theories will be applied: conflict theory, structural functionalism and symbolic interactionism. These theories are categorized by two approaches of sociological investigation- macrosociological, which emphasizes the analysis of social systems and populations on a large scale, and micro sociological, which emphasizes the impact individuals have on social structure.

In conclusion, the United States consist of five percent of the world’s population with 25 percent in a prison setting. During the prison boom over half the prison population is African Americans although they only make up 13 percent of the population. Similar to slavery, mass incarceration uses a strategy for economic growth in many communities. As predictor race in the United States, inferior labor market opportunities, racial disparities, and the destruction of family units has helped to maintain economic hierarchy. There is no way to undo the damage that has been done but to target at risk individuals, we as a nation must look beyond our past and reeducate ourselves about race. Due to mass incarceration being so costly, it has gotten a great deal of attention due to economic oppression and the legacy of racism passed down will lead to the reinvention of Jim Crow.

I conmplelty agree with you, as long as America keeps imprisoning people for betty crimes such as possession of small amount of drugs instead of actually rehabilitating

Mass incarceration has grown and developed so much, that it’s come to define and create fear in America’s minority communities. “America contains approximately 5% of the world’s population, but has 25% of the world’s incarcerated.” (DeVernay, 2016) There’s always been an underlying tension between minorities and authorities, and that’s due to the unjust discrimination they face in the eyes of the law.

The United States is said to be the largest jailers in the world. Holding roughly 5% of the world’s population, the U.S. alone holds about 25% of the world’s total prison population (Lee, 2015). As the class has learned repeatedly in senior seminar, the prison population in the U.S. is overwhelmed and overcrowded. The class has also learned that the War on Drugs is a huge contributing factor for the increase of mass incarceration, but is that the only contributing factor? My theory to the mass incarceration rates in the United States is correlated with racial profiling. Nearly 2.3 million people are incarcerated in the U.S., of that population; 1 million are African Americans alone and one in six black men have been incarcerated since 2001

The growth of incarceration in the United States Prison grew over the last four decades. The trend is historically unprecedented and is unique to the world. The majority of those incarcerated come from disadvantaged populations and comprises of main minorities below the age of forty. The communities have the number of people engaging in crime, drug abuse, alcohol addiction, physical and mental illness and lack of employment. The African Americans and Hispanics form the largest prison population compared to the non-Hispanic whites. The high incarceration has the huge impact on the American society since its inception in the 1960s and 1970s. The changed political environment led to policy changes. All levels of the government altered

Before enrolling in this class, I was unaware of the topic that would be introduced to us. Many of my friends have taken this class in the past and recommended that I check each course to see which topic the class focuses on. Instead, I neglected their words of advice and dove into the class blind. Although I was unaware of the topic to be introduced, once I heard it being about mass incarceration, I was somewhat relieved. The class I took as a prerequisite to Writing 39C was Writing 37 and the topic was about racial conflict in the past. Upon hearing the topic in our first session, my mind instantly linked together the racial conflict I had prior knowledge about to the racial profiling that was an incentive to the mass incarceration. Connecting these two broadened my view on the "New Jim Crow" and allowed me insight on where I wanted to start my research and how to branch off from it.

Incarceration can have multiple profound effects on a person. While the goal of incarceration is to rehabilitate the person to follow laws, the result is often isolation and loss of valuable resources that a person needs to maintain a positive role outside the prison system. Many people are affected by the incarceration of a person, from the family, to the community and employers, to society in general. Here is a brief look at some of those affected by a person's incarceration.

In conclusion, incarceration refers to a person who is housed in a correctional facility. This term is widely in compared to the word imprisonment. In addition, the time served as a inmate is determined by the law and judge. It is important to recognize that an inmate can be incarcerated based on his criminal action. He is then placed in a prison, jail or, Juvenile correctional facility. An inmate must serve either minimum sentence, maximum sentence, or mandatory

children ensuring that they do not get trapped in to the criminal justice system like their family member. The woman also develops the responsibility of paying for court-related costs and the costs of staying in contact with the individual who has been incarcerated. Incarceration may also cause the child to go to foster care. One in thirty parents in state prisons has children who are a part of the foster care system. The Adoption and Safe Families Act of 1997, was an act that authorized the termination of parental rights when a child has been in foster care for more than 15 months. So if an individual receives a sentence for more than a year, that means they will no longer have parental rights to the child that they birthed.

Mass incarceration in America has had monstrous rippling effects throughout the nation as well as in the everyday lives of people. The complications that have come with the broken prison system in America have come to define a generation of American people. The prison system in America has become so damaged that it only hurts rather than helping people, and excellent example of this can be seen in the story of Shaka Senghor. Both in his book and in life, prison not only isolated people physically from society, but also psychological changes them and their lives as a whole. In America, the prison system is broken and does more good than bad, something that can clearly be seen in the story of Shaka Senghor, “Writing My Wrongs: Life, Death, and Redemption in An American Prison”.