To understand Mass incarceration, I have to understand the term and have a understanding of its back ground after doing some research this is the information I gained. Mass incarceration is an issue in the world. Incarceration is messed up in America. We sent to people to prison for breaking the law, and to deter others from breaking the law punishment deterrence. But America is better at punishment than correction, todays prisoners are tomorrows neighbors. America has about 4 percent of the world people and about 25 percent of the world incarcerated people, we have the highest incarceration rate in the world. $1% of American juvenile and young adults have been arrested by the time they turn 23. Children as young 13 years old have sentences to die in prison. And our prisons violate international standard, solitary confinements increase instability and violate in inmates and it considered by international law to be torture. But in America prison are not regulated by anyone except the prison’s officials.
For a citizen It’s very difficult to get a job in America but it’s even more difficult to get a job with a conviction on your record. Convicts are ineligible for welfare student loans, public housing and food stamps. Convicts are often socially disconnected from social and family support and structure. So, in addition they have very suicide rate and homelessness.
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After gaining doing some research I learned information I did not know such as convict were unable to obtain home, public housing, and welfare in general. - Student loans and food stamps. My next question I needed to research before trying to tackle mass incarceration is what exactly welfare is, and why can’t convicts receive it.
After watching this documentary to I learned that rate of documentary is so high we are no longer incarcerating the individual America is incarcerating a whole social group. The rate of incarceration now is about five times higher than it was historically. Nowhere in the world incarcerate as much as we do, we’ve seen extremely high rate of exposure to the criminal justice system for African American men. For African men born in the 1970’s who were growing up through the American prison boom of the 1980’s and 1990’s, the chances they would serve time in the state or federal prison if they dropped out of high school is about 70 percent. Were about at the point its 1 in 9 of African American children who have a parent in prison. Kids who experience parent incarceration have behavioral problems, depressive systems, acting out, diminish school achievement, it also said its very risky that incarceration becomes an inherited trait.
To get a better understanding of mass incarceration I needed to understand these terms and see how they related. - Blue Wall of Silence & Police Suicide, Dirty harry Syndrome, Repeat Offenders, War on Drugs and Undercover Investigations.
Blue wall of silence are terms used in the united states to describe the unwritten rule that police officers are not to report on a collogues errors. Police error can be misconduct, police brutality, or crime. When being questioned about another officer wrong doing the officer would claim ignorance and report they haven’t seen anything. This is an example of police corruption and misconduct. Officers who engage in discriminatory arrest, physical or harassment and selective enforcement of the law are considered to be corrupt. Police participate in this act for personal matters. These are all considered illegal offenses and are ground for immediate suspension.
Officers are unable to report fellow officer who participate in illegal offenses due to their unwritten law of their police family. Officers who do not lie in court may sometimes be threatened and ostracized by fellow officers. Meaning some officer falsify reports, arrest, to cover for an illegal arrest or search and make up fabricated stories when testifying before a jury.
Next term is the Dirty harry syndrome, it is a term used to describe a police officer who is reckless. This officer takes the situation into his own hands and disregards practices and policies.
When searching the database, I found that among united states today there are over 23000 investigations for excessive force, over 3100 investigation for rape and over 2300 investigation for police misconduct such as domestic violence. This information proves we have a corrupt and dirty justice system.
This information five some facts that is related to how the united states is the world biggest jailer. 2.2. million people are imprisoned in the us more than in any country in the world. The united states have more prisoners than china who more of a population. When you count the people, who aren’t just incarcerated but on probation or a on parole, the number is at almost 7 million. That is 1 in 35 American adults caught up in the prison system. And for people of color its even wort one out of every 3 African Americans born today will go to jail at some point in their lives.
How did the place which defines itself by the name land of the free, put so many citizens behind bars? It wasn’t always like this, back in the 1960s our incarceration rate was the name as Europe, and the crime rate are the same as the western world, so crime rate isn’t different. The reason why America has so much people in prison is because, America is tough on crime policies. Over the past few decades a number of very harsh policies have been enacted in state and federal legislature, a lot was to do with longer sentences and three strikes law.3 strikes law mean if you get in trouble 3x regardless of how petty the crimes are you have to be in prison.
In Germany on six percent of the people convicted gets locked up compared to America 70 percent. The average sentence in the United states in 3 years that is 3x longer than in Germany. Harsh drug laws are also a problem, the 1986 anti- drug abuse act instituted a mandator minimum sentence of 5 years without parole for possession of 5 grams of crack. Overall black and white people use drugs at the same rate, but black men are 12x more likely to go to prison on drug offenses. Finally, when it comes to our prison population mental health also plays a role, about half of all incarcerated suffer mental health problems. For 10 to 25 percent of prisoners some suffer from serious mental health illness such as schizophrenia or bipolar disorder.
Drug and alcohol are also a dependent and instead of getting help many mentally ill people cycle through the system over and over again. But it’s not just drug abusers who fall victim to this cycle, being convicted of a felony, their sentence and punishment can follow them long after their time is served, it can make getting housing, assistance, job even harder, and also losing the right to vote. In Florida and Virginia both key states in national elections more than 1 in 5 black people are disenfranchised.
The prison boom hasn’t been so bad for everyone private prison cooperation like correction corporation of America are actually profiting from it, the correction corporation of America made 1.6 billion in revenue in 2014 alone this is all part of what is called the prison industrial complex and when 1 in 35 Americans caught up in it you have to ask just how free are we.
CCA and GEO are two private prison corporation that are for profit facilities, they claim to be the good guys, but they are the bad guys. The CEO and workers are over payed and have connection to politician and they spend a lot money 1 million dollar each year lobbying federal government issues like homeland security appropriation. In 2016 GEO group subsidiary contributed 225,000 to a Pro trump super Pac and an addition 250 k for the president inaugural committee.
Private prison has a profit motive to lock up more innocent Americans, they do so make money. They make money by imprisoning innocent people for. Petty crimes such as marijuana talking away their freedom and liberty for profit. private prison does not care if the people are guilty or innocent, they care about maximizing profit. They agenda is to imprison more Americans right or wrong. As a CEO your job is to maximize profit, if you’ not doing so for a profit corporation you’re fired. So logically they invest millions of dollars to buy corrupt politicians to support their agenda.
References
- 'Mass Incarceration | American Civil Liberties Union' . n.p., 1 Jan. 1970.Web. 3 Sep. 2019.
- 'Mass Incarceration: The Whole Pie 2019 | Prison Policy Initiative' . Wendy Sawyer and Peter Wagner, 1 Jan. 1970.Web. 3 Sep. 2019.
- 'Punishment's place: the local concentration of mass incarceration' . n.p., 1 Jan. 1970.Web. 3 Sep. 2019.
- 'Rethinking Public Safety to Reduce Mass Incarceration and ...' . Team Warren, 1 Jan. 1970.Web. 3 Sep. 2019.
- 'Why American Prisons Owe Their Cruelty to Slavery ' The New York .... Bryan Stevenson, 1 Jan. 1970.Web. 3 Sep. 2019.
- The History of Mass Incarceration | Brennan Center for Justice. (1970). Retrieved on September 3, 2019, from https://www.brennancenter.org/blog/history-mass-incarceration.
- Wendy Sawyer and Peter Wagner. (1970). Mass Incarceration: The Whole Pie 2019 | Prison Policy Initiative. Retrieved on September 3, 2019, from https://www.prisonpolicy.org/reports/pie2019.html.
- 'Crime Is Down, Yet U.S. Incarceration Rates Are Still Among the ...' . n.p., 1 Jan. 1970.Web. 3 Sep. 2019.
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