Abstract
Mass incarceration in the United States of America is considered one of the most important problems and the number of prisoners continues to increase. This country has the biggest imprisonment rate out of any country in the world more than even Russia, Cuba, Rwanda, Belarus, and Kazakhstan. The study will be conducted through the use of incarceration analysis. Some of the sources are based on how prisoners have had a hard time adjusting after prison and how it relates to the communities of color. All of this research is relevant in working toward understanding why it happens and what to do to decline its rise in the United States. What is more, mass incarceration has been a topic of interest in the research world for many years.
Introduction
Today, the United States possesses the highest place in incarcerating more people than any other country. One prime example would be Jim Crow who is more than just a series of severe anti-black laws but it became a style of life. Michelle Alexander, in her book Jim Crow, argues that a mass incarceration is a form of social control, and the only way to make a change is by the massive social change and the Civil Rights Movement.
This control of people should be viewed as a crime itself, targeting groups of people stripping them of basic rights and freedom leaves them in a discriminated social class destroying lives and creating an unethical infrastructure. She also hits on many significant points concerning the criminal justice system and the systems on racial elements that have been perpetuated through various laws, which will be looked at in-depth.
In summary, there is a need for a better understanding of the phenomenon of mass incarceration on the whole. Particularly, the following research questions need to be addressed:
- What are the premises of the mass incarceration in the country of Americans from a political standpoint?
- What are the main problems facing the prisoners after releasing them from jail?
- What are the results of the imprisonment?
- What are the differences in treating African Americans and White ones?
The US accounts for approximately five percent of the world’s population and about 25 percent of all prisoners in the world (Clear and Frost 21). Mass imprisonment in the United States is the result of many years of punitive punishment, involving life sentences without parole, severe criminal repression, and three-strike law that implies long-term imprisonment for those who committed three crimes.
The importance of researching the chosen topic is enormous since it is a great issue for all the people, particularly for the Americans. Despite the numerous works concerning this problem which lack the deep understanding along with logical, ethical, and appeal to pathos. The research work includes all these spheres of influence and aims to investigate the problem of mass incarceration from different points of view.
In this literature review, it is expected to discuss the fact that politicians, policymakers, social activists, and other interested parties are constantly debating over the need for the decriminalization of certain acts and modernization such as humanization or liberalization of criminal legislation. These efforts are faced with the opposite trend as many government officials and legal scholars demand a toughening of criminal liability. Understanding the causes of such phenomena, looking at them from different views, and analyzing the arguments can help in developing options suitable for solving the problem of mass incarceration.
Literature Review
Premises of Mass Incarceration in the US
The 70s of the previous century is the beginning of the mass incarceration firstly, during the Nixon administration and then it heightens during the Reagan administration but scientists have found some connections with the Kennedy and Johnson administrations. According to the former Nixon domestic policy chief John Ehrlichman, the administration of Nixon in 1968 had two foes: the antiwar left and black people and getting the public to associate the hippies with marijuana and blacks with heroin and then criminalizing both heavily there could be a disrupt of those communities (Dan Baum).
Since the mid-1970s, the United States has seen a continuous rise in the rates of incarcerations. There is an extreme prison population growth as a result of the drug laws and more rigid sentences enacted in the 70s, the U.S prison population has grown by 500 percent over the past thirty years. According to Radio Times, Keith states “Over 2 million Americans are in jail today, about half of them for non-violent crimes” (Keith Reeves, Jane Siegel). These overcrowded U.S prisons have devastating effects on poor families and communities and they are more vulnerable to economic stress and adverse interpersonal issues such as lack of trust, shame, instability in family relationships, school behaviors, and academic performance of fear of getting close to anyone.
The described issues reflect the views held in public opinion that criminal justice can effectively solve emerging socio-economic problems. Many researchers accuse the Congress of such a situation, but the great contribution to mass incarceration has been made by courts that prefer an extensive interpretation of the federal criminal law. Even if there is a special federal law that applies to a particular criminal act, courts often broadly interpret a general law that allows a more severe punishment for the same act.
American researchers conclude that society fell into dependence on deprivation of liberty as the conviction that it can control any behavior substitutes the facts (Simon 56). In general, this idea is quite relevant to US society as a whole, which in many ways predetermines the activities of politicians and courts.
Problems Occurring after Release
A lot of sources that have been looked up tell more about mass incarceration generally in the United States. Ex-prisoners have a very hard time adjusting to life after being released from prison. The United States remains a considerably racially segregated nation residentially. For instance, a white person could do something worse than an African-American, but the African will still have more problems in getting a job once getting out of prison.
They consider things just in terms of the race, 2.3 million people have lost their family connections, jobs and freedom left their homes and the like. Not only the children faced with the trauma of loss, but they are also faced with a myriad of other challenges both in the economic and social realm. As the number of children whose parents are incarcerated increased so does their needs. These needs are varied from having a safe and stable environment to having an appropriate caretaker to care for them in the absence of their parents. All in all, when parents are incarcerated, many things that happen to the children becomes a major concern.
Among the most characteristic features in prisons, there is their overcrowded nature, widespread physical abuse, poor nutrition, and inadequate access of prisoners to medical care. Long prison terms have led to the imprisonment of more and more elderly people, and this creates serious medical problems for the prison administration, which is poorly prepared to handle the problems of the aging prison population.
For example, more than 26,000 people aged 65 and over got into state prisons and federal prisons in 2011 that is equal to a 62 percent increase over the past five years. Such lamentable conditions negatively affect prisoners’ physical and psychological health, thus reducing their chances of adaptation after the release. The issue of the fate of former prisoners who are deprived of society has been repeatedly raised before the President and the US Congress, but the problem of finding a place to live for the former prisoners and their families has not been solved. On the contrary, the punitive bias of criminal justice continues to grow.
Results of Imprisonment
Furthermore, in one of the articles by Petersilia, an interesting idea is discussed, it is how inmates are not ready to join the rest of society when they come out of prison because everyday life has changed by the time they are released (Joan Petersilia). They often find themselves back when they were before they went to prison, but they are not getting them ready to function back in society. Therefore, they do not know how to continue life and where to go.
Life in prison is very boring. In the article “The Mass Incarceration Problem in America” Grace used mainly logical appeals in her argumentations that incarceration in America is an issue that needs to be more readily discussed in public discourse. Also, she mentions “the US is the habitation to nearly a quarter of the world’s prisoners, despite the amount of just 5 percent of the overall global population” (Grace Wyler).
Moreover, the most horrible thing is that the people in prisons are not guilty. In many American high-security prisons, inmates are constantly in a state of complete isolation. They are fed in special boxes, allowed to exercise only half an hour a day, and even forbidden to decorate the concrete walls of their cameras. There are official conclusions that such conditions of detention have driven many of them to profound mental disorders.
From a broader point of view, unjustifiably severe criminal repression is manifested primarily in the excessive criminalization of acts and excessive penalties mainly with the widespread use of long periods of liberty deprivation. This creates serious negative consequences for the economy, demographic situation, and other processes. The prevalence of excessively severe punishment causes overcrowding in prisons, as a result of which conditions for violation of the basic human rights and citizens are created. In 2015, the US Supreme Court recognized that excessive criminalization as well as excessive penalties are a great problem for the country, as stated by Judge Kagan in connection with the Yates v. the United States (2015) case.
Namely, this case was sued after US President Donald Trump removed the acting Attorney General from office after she pointedly refused to support his executive order closing the US borders to refugees from Muslim countries. Such a situation shows that the problem exists and needs to be resolved immediately to prevent more complicated consequences.
Speaking of the state and the regimen of the correctional institutions, it should be noted that there is a great economic and social burden. The total cost of keeping inmates in places of liberty deprivation in the US is about $ 39 billion per year. The largest number of funds spent in California ($ 7.9 billion), New York ($ 3.5 billion), and Texas (3.3 billion dollars) (Orrick and Vieraitis 404). The rise in the number of prisoners significantly increases the burden on the budget of both states and the government. As a result, mass imprisonment negatively affects commerce, enterprise, and innovation as well as undermines public confidence in the justice system. At the same time, the levels of mass incarceration remain high.
Differences in Treating African Americans and White ones
In a country that boasts about equality, African Americans are treated very differently than whites and often are giving a lesser chance for succeeding in life. According to Eli Hager, “Black people in this country are imprisoned at more than 5 times the rate of whites; one in 10 blocks children has a parent behind the bar, compared with about one in 60 white kids” (Eli Hager). This is a terrible state that proves the point that whites and African Americans are not treated the same in American society.
The issue of race is something that they have seen going on with prisoners for a long time. In Michelle Alexander’s The New Jim Crow she states one in three young African American men will spend time in prison, in some cities, more than half of them are incarcerated on parole, or probation (Michelle Alexander). Alexander’s main point is that this is the New Jim crow of “colorblindness” disguises the reality of a new racial caste system.
There are still areas of predominantly African American population residence, where the standard of living on such parameters as crime, the quality of housing conditions, access to education and medical care are much inferior compared to those with the White population. Thus, African American citizens of the United States fall into a vicious circle, where an unemployed or homeless, a member of a criminal group becomes a drug trafficker, yet it is difficult to get an education and a good job.
Almost half of the prisoners are convicted of non-violent crimes related to property, public order, and drugs. About 95 percent of all cases are disclosed as part of a deal with justice (“World Report 2015: United States”). People agree to take the blame to get a shorter period than the conviction of the court. For example, among those accused of drug cases, those who refuse to plead guilty in the investigation receive an average of three times longer sentences (“World Report 2015: United States”).
This practice is directly related to another transparent phenomenon in the US criminal justice such as the release of a suspect on bail. Initially, a pledge was introduced to allow suspects to be at large while preparing for trial. Now, it is rather a mechanism aimed at speeding up the resolution of court cases. Thus, in the course of pre-trial detention, those who are not able to obtain bail are inclined to accept an offer to plead guilty. Considering that among those with low income, there are more African Americans, they become more prone to imprisonment.
One of the destructive consequences of mass imprisonment is the devastation of the lives of children whose parents are imprisoned (Wakefield and Wildeman 42). A new study by Child Trends found that the problem has reached alarming proportions – every 14th American child has a parent in prison (Murphey and Cooper 8). This data is a direct consequence of the system of mass imprisonment. According to the organization of the mentioned study, more than five million American children’s parents were imprisoned, while among African Americans, these numbers are the highest. The study says that every 9th African American child under 18 years has a parent in prison. Also, a large percentage of deprived parents are noted in the poor and rural families without education.
Crutchield and Woek mention how people of those races are more prone to getting into trouble with the law by doing something out in public. While trying to find solutions to the problem for mass incarceration in terms of colored people Crutchield and Woek say that the best way to decrease the collateral results and the criminogenic effects of high rates of incarcerations and their following unfavorable effects for people of different races is to diminish the number of people going into prisons and to construct a more just society.
Solution
An alternative to incarceration can give courts more options to decline mass incarceration in the United States. For instance, the majority of the growth in prison populations in this country is due to slamming people in jail because they were caught using drugs. So much of the much crime of the streets of our country is the country is a drug-related crime that would largely disappear. If the massive profits brought on by drug criminalization were eliminated. “A grant was filed in 1995 that offered monetary rewards to prisons that increased their prison population” (13703, violent offender incarceration grants, 42 USCA),” so if many prisons were not for profit the numbers of incarcerated would lower.
Furthermore, you can reduce drug usage more efficiently, and at a lower cost, through treatment would prevent crimes before they happen to eliminate the initial cause. Another solution could be law enforcement should be identified problems that are the utilization of the SARA model, which involves, analyze the problem by collecting or other relevant information and scanning the social environment to identify problems, which could have been a solution to help decline the mass incarceration.
The movement against mass incarceration has a rich history, while its most prominent feature is the absence of political and ideological coloring. It is attended by Democrats and Republicans who act in a united coalition. Today, this movement attracts wide attention and becomes massive. The society is gradually realizing that the adoption of new criminal and legal prohibitions cannot solve this urgent problem. Instead, to solve the identified issue, it is, first of all, necessary to change judicial practice.
Federal judges should be aware of the negative results that may be produced by mass imprisonment and the associated broad approach to the interpretation of federal criminal law. At the same time, the most important role is played by changes in public awareness. Simon points out that people need to understand the devastating impact of mass imprisonment (98). For example, a survey conducted in Minnesota showed, that four out of five residents would prefer to invest in education, training, and community programs aimed at reducing crime than spending it on correctional facilities.
Methodology
The primary research method for this study is a literature review. This study first reviews the background issues about mass incarceration in the United States. To determine the results of that phenomenon, the critical analysis of some articles is implied. This study is conducted at the beginning of 2018.
Conclusion
Mass incarceration is a big issue in the United States. There are far more people imprisoned in the United States than in any other country. The articles give a lot of information about the topic chosen on mass incarceration and everyone realizes how big the problem of mass incarceration is in the United States its consequences and possible solutions. Thus, the opposition to mass incarceration in the US attracts more and more supporters, including scientists, public activists, official authorities, etc. The goal is to make this problem sound and clear to wide populations, thus promoting change in the very system of judicial practice.
Works Cited
Alexander, Michelle, “The New Jim Crow”, 9 Ohio St. J. Crim. L7, 2011.
Baum, Dan “Legalize It All: How to win the war on drugs?”, 2016.
Clear, Todd R., and Natasha A. Frost. The Punishment Imperative: The Rise and Failure of Mass Incarceration in America. NYU Press, 2015.
Cole, David, “Turning the Corner on Mass Incarceration?” 9 Ohio St. J. Crim. L.27, 2011.
Crustchield, Robert D, and Gregory A Woek, “The Effects of Mass Incarceration on Communities of Colors” Issues in science and technology Vol. 32 issue 1, 2015.
Eli, Hager, “A Mass in Incarceration Mystery,” The Marshall Project, 2017.
Keith Reeves and Jane Siegel, The History and Legacy Of Mass Incarceration In The US, Radio Times. 2013.
Murphey, David, and P. Mae Cooper. “Parents behind bars: What happens to their children.” Child Trends, vol. 42, no. 1, 2015, 1-22.
Orrick, Erin A., and Lynne M. Vieraitis. “The Cost of Incarceration in Texas: Estimating the Benefits of Reducing the Prison Population.” American Journal of Criminal Justice, vol. 40, no. 2, 2015, 399-415.
Petersilia, Joan, “Prison Can Be Cages or Schools”. Los Angeles Times. 2005.
Simon, Jonathan. Mass Incarceration on Trial: A Remarkable Court Decision and the Future of Prisons in America. The New Press, 2014.
Wakefield, Sara, and Christopher Wildeman. Children of the Prison Boom: Mass Incarceration and the Future of American Inequality. Oxford University Press, 2013.
“World Report 2015: United States.” Human Rights Watch, n.d. Web.
Wyler, Grace, “The Mass Incarceration Problem in America”. 2014.