Mass Incarceration is a big issue that is still happening today. The United States has the largest prison population with about almost 2.5 million prisoners. According to the documentary The 13th, The start of mass incarceration started becoming a large issue when the war on drugs started the war on drugs was a movement that started when Ronald Regan was in presidency around 1982. When the war on drugs was initiated, it wasn’t really a seen issue but Ronald Reagan seen it as a issue. This focused on communities of color, many african americans and hispanics were arrested.
This war increased prison population to 759,100 in 1985. “Almost 3000 of 100,000 Black male US residents are imprisoned, compared to 488 whites (Carsen, 2014). Across all age ranges, incarceration rates for Black males were at least 6 times those of white males; and for 18-19 year-old males, Blacks were 9 times more likely to be imprisoned (Carsen, 2014). Though the differences are smaller, Black female incarceration rates were twice those of white females across all ages, and for ages 18–19, they were almost 5 times higher (Carsen, 2014)…(Blankenship et all.,2018)”.
The demographic changes that has happened during this time is that there was a lot of african american men being taken away from their families and being arrested for minor charges. The lower class population was lowered because of the many arrest that was made during this time. Many people who were targeted was african americans and the hispanic/ latino community. Many who were incarcerated were men but there was also women being arrested. Many of these people were arrested for drug crimes because during this time the use of crack cocaine was at a all time high. It was always said that the government purposely put out crack cocaine in the low class communities to get african american and brown people hooked on it and making it easier for them to arrest them for these crimes involving crack cocaine. Race and social clas had a lot to do with the start of mass incarceration and the war on crime, if race wasn’t a factor there wouldn’t be as many arrest in the african american and brown communities.
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Historical Trajectory that was implemented was higher levels of police involvement and technology. The use of the SWAT team was during this time to be used as a scared tactic to use in the lower class communities. This tactic was created to as you would say create fear and to be able to do things that the average police officers couldn’t do. Another change was a increase in poverty. Many people became very poor during this time. Rates were increasing because many heads of the household were being arrested and detained. “The U.S. wastes over $80 billion on incarceration each year while spending only approximately one-third of that sum on education. More than five million children have had a parent incarcerated; millions of families are living with the burden of incarceration (Jones,2017)”.
Currently there is still a lot of mass incarceration going on till this day. The population of prisoners nationwide is 2.3 million with 1,306,000 being in state prisons (Sawyer & Wagner, n.d.). There still is a race issue going on when it comes to mass incarceration. According to The Federal Bureau of Prisons, the percent of inmates being black is 37.5% which is 66,176 inmates (‘Federal Bureau of Prisons’, n.d.). About half of inmates are african american and another majority being white but for reason it always seems that african americans are the main ones to be charged for something and actually given a sentence.
For it to be almost about 3 million people being held in prisons is very significant and the amount of people for these races is very much a big conflict. There is a lot of people who are being held there for minor crimes but are being sentenced to long sentences because of many other things that could be on their record. There is no solution for the reasoning of people being held into the prisons when they are over capacity. There is way too many people being held in these cells. It’s always a race things when it comes to the criminal justice system. Many people are done wrong when sentenced to jail and are convicted of things that they probably did not do. For example the Rodney Reed case.
Reed is to be executed for a murder that he didnt even commit. This man has been in jail wasting is whole life over something he didn’t do, and the case has evidence that proves it was not him but the people of the courts do not even care to run a DNA test. This innocent man is going to die because of the laziness of the criminal justice system. This shows you that mass incarceration is real, they will keep you in prison for any means necessary.
The need of the african american and hispanic communities is less racism and the policing being less harsh. Racism is a everyday thing especially now. People now are being stopped by the police in low class communities, whether its the way they dress or to how dark they are. Many people live in fear of going to jail and that not a way to live. Another need in the community is fair trail. Many african americans and hispanics are given harsh sentences for a minor crime, sometimes they are even automatically sent to solidary confinement.
Fair sentencing will better the community because they know whats right and whats wrong, they know if they are being sentenced based on race and not based on the crime. They realized that they can’t get off like whites do, they have to serve some time for any little thing that they do. If many of the sentences were fair, there would be less protesting in the communities, police wouldn’t be getting such a bad name if thing were fair, but in this society today its still feels like its segregated in some form. We are still being treated like we were back then. For instance the case for the killing of Vincent Trin.
Vincent Trin was beaten to death by white men, Now if they were black or hispanic, they would be quick to send them to prison with a life sentence. They wouldn’t mind adding s couple of more black or brown people to the bad enough prison population now. Its crazy that mass incarceration has got to this point. People wonder why rates of poverty is going up, its because many people who are the main providers/bread winners for their families are sent to jail with a possibility of not getting released.
The lasting implications today are people are still being incarcerated when the prison population numbers are higher than they need to be. Many families are still living in poverty because of the outcome of mass incarceration. Historically the issue with police wrongfully arresting people is still going on, it has never stopped. The pattern of people getting harsh sentences for minor crimes also is still a issue today. Many people now just sit in jail because they can’t afford their high bail.
“Advocates will quickly point out how this system puts the poor at a huge disadvantage. Stuck in jail because they can’t afford to pay bail, inmates are unable to work or support their families, making them particularly susceptible to the spiral of debt and incarceration. The bail bond business, as with others tied to the criminal justice system, is extremely lucrative, bringing in more than $2 billion in profit each year, according to a 2017 report by nonprofit civil rights advocacy group Color of Change and the ACLU’s Campaign for Smart Justice (Kann, 2019)” It almost seems like the courts set the bail so high because they know that many people can’t pay for their expenses, that way they can keep these people locked up even longer until its is time for their court date. That time in between can be months even year and these people have to stay in jail because they can’t pay the bail.
Economically, the poverty levels have gone up and many people are trying to survive. Many people who are living in poverty have to work multiple jobs just to be able to pay their bills. There probably are times where many people have to live with multiple people, two families under one roof because of the affect that mass incarceration has on the community. Especially when the people are released from jail, many of them have no where to go and it’s not easy to find a job. Once someone knows that you are a convicted felon, they don’t want to hire you. This is hard on the person, they just want to live life normally. Many people have to start all over again and its hard, super hard because many people don’t want to help you they rather see you struggle.
The challenges with mass incarceration is that more and more are going to be arrested. What could you do with all the people that are in over populated jails and prisons? Many people believe that people are there serving their time but little do they know some of them are there serving time that wasn’t fair to their sentence. I feel as if there should be reviewing of peoples cases and see if you can release people early. Many lawyers and people in the prisons promise that they will try to get them a smaller sentence and many people wait years to hear back new.
If people are in for a misdemeanor, they shouldn’t be held in a prison or jail. Maybe if the prisons take initiative in rehabilitating people are just giving community service that can be something that would help the over populated prisons. Many people can also say just build another prison but all that would do it make another way to overpopulate another prison. Its hard to say what the many challenges are of mass incarceration but it is causing many problems. The Justice system is very dirty, they just want to lock people up and forget about them but these people have families that wont forget about what has been done.
Mass incarceration will cause more and more problems within communities. Its really bringing more protest and activist aware of the situation and they are going to try to do something about it with no questions asked. People are no longer afraid of what the consequences are. They want to fight for what is right without a doubt. If mass incarceration doesn’t get better, there will be a big problem within communities nationwide and it can get ugly.
Some repercussions of mass incarceration can be that many people with start to take it to the government and to the white house. People want to be able to speak their peace and they want to be heard. I feel like this will eventually bring a national crisis in the sense that people will protest, people will take it to the media like they already have, people will riot and cause a scene. If you don’t hear them out, the people will give them a reason to listen. Its easy to say that now people have no limits, they will go as far as they can for a solution.
Some future repercussions of mass incarceration is that there will be many people unemployed any many people being out of work. There wont be as many people there is now working at their same jobs that the used to have. This is because many people will not be able to make it to their jobs or many they have multiple jobs and is hard to maintain a busy schedule. For education many people probably wont go as far as the thought they would in their schooling, many people will decide to work instead of going to school or decide that they will just drop out. For many people school will become a option and they will just for get about their education because of all the things that they are going through.
Lastly, when it co,e to families, there will be more and more families living in poverty and in low income areas. Man families will probably end up struggling just to make ends meet because life is not easy for them. Some might become homeless and have to move in with other families or even take their life to the streets which is sad to see. Many families have todo what they have to do to be able to live life. It many not be a option that they really want to do but at the end of the day they have to find a way to be able to live and not die. Many families are trying to do their best to provide a better life for their children but it is hard. Mass incarceration will cause everything to become hard for people to live.
References
- Sawyer, W., & Wagner, P. (n.d.). Mass Incarceration: The Whole Pie 2019. Retrieved from https://www.prisonpolicy.org/reports/pie2019.html.
- Federal Bureau of Prisons. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://www.bop.gov/about/statistics/statistics_inmate_race.jsp.
- Kann, D. (2019, April 21). The US still incarcerates more people than any other country. Retrieved from https://www.cnn.com/2018/06/28/us/mass-incarceration-five-key-facts/index.html.
- Blankenship, Kim M, Ana Maria Del Rio Gonzalez, Danya E Keene, Allison K Groves, and Alana P Rosenberg. ‘Mass Incarceration, Race Inequality, and Health: Expanding
- Concepts and Assessing Impacts on Well-being.’ Social Science & Medicine 215 (2018): 45-52. Web. https://www.fcnl.org/documents/335
- Ava Duvernay & Jason Moran. (2016) 13TH. USA.
