Mass Incarceration: Disproportionate Impact on Minorities - Research Paper

Introduction

Mass Incarceration is the rate of imprisonment in its extreme through mainly concentration of the high population of prisoners in the state and federal prisons and also the local jails. Unfortunately, a majority of these individuals are Latinos and Blacks, despite the similar rates of drug use (Kannn.n.d). Also, Blacks are known to be subject to higher rates of arrest reaching as high as four times for marijuana use and are given longer sentences than their fellow Whites. Mass incarceration took its roots in the philosophy of "tough on crime" developed in the 1980s and the 90s and was combined with the U.S. government war on drugs (Kannn.n.d). It led to both Republican and Democratic legislation allowing people to be jailed on cells as its initial way of punishing instead of applying it as a last resort for the lawbreakers (Rothschild p.106). In this paper, we shall discuss why mass incarceration needs to be abolished and replaced with rehabilitation.

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In the past four decades, the rate of incarceration has quadrupled since its introduction in the 1980s. The population of inmates in the state and federal prisons rose from 200,000 to 1.5 million from 1973 to 2009 alone (Western, Travis and Redburn p.1). By 2012, the United States penal population was at 2.2 million and was considered the largest in the world. The rate stood at 1 in jail for every 100 adults, making it five to ten times higher in Western Europe and other world democracies. It can also be observed that the most disadvantaged communities in the population are incarcerated in U.S. prisons compared to the rest of the population (Western, Travis and Redburn p.2). The Blacks are incarcerated six times more, while the Hispanics three times more than the White counterparts. In addition, a majority of those in jail are the youths, under the age of forty years, who are poorly educated, and may more often than not carry other deficits including drug and alcohol abuse and addiction. Others suffer from mental and physical illnesses, and lack skills necessary for employment (Western, Travis and Redburn p.2).

The historical cause of incarceration was triggered by the tumultuous social and political change in the United States and the political climate of the 1960s and 70s changed, and a series of political choices had to be made (Western, Travis and Redburn p.2). All the branches and levels of government as well as criminal processing expanded the use of incarceration through an increase in prison time for lesser offenses, and a significant increase for violent crimes and repeat offenders. It was also applied in drug crimes especially in the streets of the urban cities. The 1970s saw growth in incarceration through the number of arrests, case increase, and harsher charging as well as sentencing by prosecutors and judges (Western, Travis and Redburn p.3). The growth in state imprisonment was driven by an increased likelihood of incarceration given the arrest of a defendant. In the 1980s, the U.S. Congress passed laws that mandated longer sentences in jail lasting from five to twenty years for violent and drug offenses as well as career criminals. The change in sentencing reflected a consensus that viewed the acts of incarceration as instruments required for preventing crimes (Western, Travis and Redburn p.3).

Why Incarceration Needs to Be Abolished and Replaced by Rehabilitation

A majority of studies have been done to establish the consequences of incarceration in the United States. They suggest that incarceration across the population is uneven and regardless of ethnicity, both jail and prison inmates are drawn from populations that are least educated in the society (Alexander, p.4). For instance, among the White males who dropped out of high school who was born in the late 1970s, a third of them have been estimated to have served time in prison by their mid-30s. Among the Blacks with little or no schooling, the rates soar as it reaches two-thirds who have served time in prison, at the same age (Tucker, p.136). This shows that they are twice as likely to serve prison sentencing than other ethnicities on the same crimes committed (Alexander, p.5). The negative impacts of such discrepancies have seen a majority of Blacks having fewer success chances and low levels of civic participation as compared to other Americans.

Since a majority of the incarcerated individuals come from disadvantaged community segments, a majority of them may go to prison in unsound mental and physical health (Rothschild p.108). Their poor health status portrays its social disadvantage, and thus underlines the importance of prisons as institutions of public health (Rothschild p.108). The other overlapping afflictions that are associated with incarceration include substance abuse, risk of infectious diseases such as viral hepatitis, sexually transmitted infections among others. Such factors impact the provision of essential health services to the inmates. The conditions that inmates are subjected to in prison also have a great impact on the progression of their health, as it causes severe stress (Rothschild p.108). Other conditions such as overcrowding and decreased opportunity for accessing rehabilitative services is highly impacted.

Negative social and economic impacts are highly correlated with incarceration especially among the former prisoners as well as their families (Turney, p 361). Apart from being disadvantaged from the fact that a majority of them originate from highly disadvantaged social segments, the community is impacted negatively, because a majority of those that end up in prisons are breadwinners, and it creates a generation of single women who raise children on their own with higher chances of committing crimes, as their fathers (Rothschild p.109). In addition, men who have a criminal record in the United States and elsewhere have reduced earnings after prison, and a majority of them may not land any form of formal employment apart from casual and temporary contracts that require low skills. Children are also likely to face the adverse outcomes of prison sentencing. From 1980 to 2000 for example, children whose fathers' had been incarcerated rose from 350,000 to 2.1 million, representing almost 3% of the child population in the United States. And from 1991 it increased from 77% to 131% (Rothschild p.103). It should be observed that such children face discrimination in their communities and schools, hence lowering their self-esteem and general motivation in life (Turney, p 363).

The role of the U.S. justice system is also reflected negatively, especially among the poorest communities of the nation. It should be observed that inmates arise from disadvantaged communities and would most likely return to them once their term is over (Kannn.n.d). It is also important to note that upon their return, their lives will continue to revolve around violence, family breakdowns, joblessness, substance abuse and a toxic neighborhood (Rothschild p.107). They are likely to return to their old habits and maybe arrested again for the same crimes, thus lengthening their sentences further. This indicates that incarceration does not solve the social impacts of imprisonment, but makes inmates worse than they arrived in jail the first time they are arrested.

The high levels of incarceration have also seen lower levels of political and civic engagement among the former prisoners and their families, friends, and others who are associated with them in any way. These individuals experience impaired quality of citizenship, low income, as well as disadvantaged membership to the American society and its public institutions (Rothschild p.109). These disadvantages create a distinct political universe for a large population segment of the United States. The lack of belonging to a State or a nation among the former inmates reduces their motivation as patriots, and it weakens their ability to participate with others in making their communities better. Its outcomes have seen their communities, being continually degraded socially with little or no improvement in the implementation of social justice (Rothschild p.109).

The U.S. correctional facilities have shown to lack rehabilitative measures as means for correcting the inmates, especially when they are exposed to the adverse prison conditions. This in return would increase the chances that an inmate would return to prison for violation of the terms of parole, by engaging in new crimes (Seigafo, p.184). Reports from the Bureau of Justice Statistics indicate that 50% of the prisoners who have been released are likely to return to prison within a period of six months to two years. These prisoners are a threat to community safety, and they contribute largely to mass incarceration that the American government faces (Seigafo, p.184). The cost of maintaining these inmates in prison is high especially for inmates serving long sentences. The federal costs for maintaining the facilities entity lies on taxpayers and thus exposing the overall economic cost of mass incarceration. The lack of rehabilitative correctional measures also threatens the general population and not only areas where inmates arise from (Seigafo, p.183). This indicates that the social and economic costs of incarceration are not only limited to a segment of the population but the entire American population.

Conclusion

In conclusion, incarceration has detrimental consequences to both the government and the society in general, hence the need to support rehabilitative measures and its overall abolishment from the constitution. Incarceration has been marked with high levels of discrimination in terms of ethnicity, in that a majority of ethnic minorities face the disadvantage of being highly likely to be imprisoned. Second, incarceration hurts the overall health of the inmate both physically and mentally, with less chance of their condition improving during the jail term. Third, the social and economic consequences of incarceration in the society are visible, characterized by low employment rates, crime, and insecurity among other negative impacts. Also, incarceration impacts access to civic and public health utilities and advantages that accompany it, and lastly, incarceration has an overall impact on the government expenditure in general. Rehabilitation has proven to be more effective in improving the wellbeing of inmates and an overall reduction in jail terms.

Work Cited

Alexander, Michelle. The new Jim Crow: Mass incarceration in the age of colorblindness. The New Press, 2020. Retrieved from http://www.frederickuu.org/sermons/NewJimCrow.pdf

Cullen, Francis T., and S. Jl-levrant. "Correctional rehabilitation." en Bryant, Cd-Adler, P.-Adler, P (2017). Retrieved from https://law.asu.edu/sites/default/files/pdf/academy_for_justice/12_Criminal_Justice_Reform_Vol_4_Correctional-Rehabilitation.pdf

Kann, Drew. "The US Still Incarcerates More People Than Any Other Country". CNN, 2019, https://edition.cnn.com/2018/06/28/us/mass-incarceration-five-key-facts/index.html. Accessed 25 Mar 2020.

Rothschild, Connor. "The Incarcerated State (s) of America: The Causes, Consequences, and Solutions to Mass Incarceration in the United States." The Rice Examiner 2.1 (2019): 103-129. Retrieved from https://scholarship.rice.edu/bitstream/handle/1911/106093/examiner-2019-art06.pdf

Seigafo, Sheldon. "Inmate's Right to Rehabilitation during Incarceration: A Critical Analysis of the United States Correctional System." International Journal of Criminal Justice Sciences 12.2 (2017). Retrieved from http://ijcjs.com/pdfs/Seigafoijcjs2017vol12issue2.pdf

Tucker, Ronnie B. "The color of mass incarceration." ethn stud rev 37.1 (2017): 135-149. Retrieved from https://esr.ucpress.edu/content/37-38/1/135.full.pdf+html

Western, Bruce, Jeremy Travis, and S....