...Curran Dwyer - Incarceration Essay Two October 25, 2009 The American Dream is predicated on the myth that in America, anyone can do anything if they have talent and a willingness to work hard. The implicit corollary is that if you end up poor, it is your own fault because you aren’t smart enough, you didn’t work hard enough, or both. Research suggests otherwise. A number of factors that play important roles in determining the life outcome of the individual are completely beyond the control of the individual. These factors include task commitment, positive reinforcement, good social skills, access to opportunity, good health, and good luck (Comer, 1997). Most government policy at the state and federal level, including long-term incarceration and the lack of social support systems, has been established based on the myth that the individual alone is responsible for his or her life outcome. My firm belief is that this is not true (Comer, 1997, 2000; Comer, Ben-Avie, Joyner, 1993), and that a primary responsibility of government is to provide opportunity to the disenfranchised. By rethinking criminal policy and sentencing, and by instituting broad social support and public works programs, the government will begin to repair its relationship with urban black communities and will move the United States closer to a realization of the American dream. The foundation the government will use to repair the relationship it has with its urban black citizens should be a series of straightforward...
Words: 2041 - Pages: 9
...In the United States of America, crime has become more prevalent, in which often results in imprisonment. According to political scientists Amy Lerman and Vesla Weaver, “The American incarceration rate quadrupled between 1970 and 2010” (Goldstein). This essentially affects African Americans, as according to Leila Morsey, “For every 100,000 black men, more than 2,700 are imprisoned” (Morsy). While incarceration affects African Americans, it also as equally important, if not more with parents. The mass incarceration of parents impacts the influence on the children of those being detained. According to prevention researchers Jane Waldfogel and Elizabeth Johnson, the number of parents with children in prison had doubled, “Approximately 600,000 children had a parent in state...
Words: 593 - Pages: 3
...Introduction The prison system in America has been a constant issue of mass-incarceration, a lack of rehabilitation, and a rate of reentry that far exceeds that of any other nation, yet this problem’s escalation has done little to bring it to the platform of reformation. The prison system has cost American taxpayers billions of dollars, and a majority of these citizens are completely unaware of the needlessness of the costs with which they are burdened. With 2.2 million people incarcerated in the U.S., Americans cannot afford to continue to turn a blind eye to the economic issues presented by the current prison system (Council of Economic Advisors 3). Due to prison growth, an increasing incarceration rate, and a lack of rehabilitation and...
Words: 1323 - Pages: 6
...mostly used for drug offense but if the offense is non violent the time in prison is usually a decade. Mandatory minimum contributes to the fact that America has a systematic problem of increase of mass incarceration, and that men of color are being deprived of things because of criminal records . Even though some believe that it prevents drug use. Overall nonviolent drug offense should be prosecuted but mandatory minimum sentencing should be eradicated. Mass incarceration refers to the unique way the United States had locked up a tremendous population in federal, state prisons, and local jails. In the text “The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in an Age of Colorblindness” by Dr. J. Carl Gregg , it states “ In 1972, fewer than 350,000 people were being held in jails and prisons nationwide, compared with more than 2 million...
Words: 526 - Pages: 3
...services including good schools, community hospitals and health clinics, or workforce development programs allows a community to have lower crime rates because the community functions through methods of prosperity. Programs such as criminal justice interventions including police initiatives, probation, parole, or prison are set in place to prevent future crimes from taking place. Over the past four decades, the United States has become increasingly reliant on incarceration as the major “tool” for reducing crime and increasing public safety. As a result of this action, the prison population has skyrocketed, rising a staggering 500% with the...
Words: 747 - Pages: 3
...Mr. Parks stars that the ex-convicts were always hungry. Released inmates lack the skills and the support system to help them qualify to get a job and find housing. Incarceration is very expensive. Released inmates receive almost no support in cash and counseling upon release. Many do not have the means to feed themselves. Long-term incarceration increases the crime rate because it devastates communities and families. The US is the world leader in jailing people. About 69% of black males, high school dropouts that were born on the 1970s have served time rather than families, communities, and economic interests. Inmates are not able to participate in society after their release. They are not training, educated or rehabilitated. The reforms...
Words: 588 - Pages: 3
...My final essay was a revision essay based on the previous writing assignment #3, which mainly talk about the consequences of the mass incarceration period on black families. I picked the visual approach to go through my revision process. I found something that fit into my elaborations and statistic, but the difficulty of making it into a visual essay is to find some related and useful pictures that are able to make the “text and message dynamic and reciprocal”. This means the photos not only simply illustrate ideas in my essay, but also extend the ideas to a more broader view. For example, one of my argument was “the experience with incarceration also has profound influences on families, especially for children”, and my photo was an inmate...
Words: 320 - Pages: 2
...[pic] English 112 Final Exam Study Questions “The Hypercriminalization of Black and Latino Male Youth” by Victor M. Rios Summarize the essay. Explain what Rios means by “mass incarceration” (41). Rios declares that his article “is to account for the social effects of mass incarceration and the criminalization of young males of color” (41). Based on the evidence he provides, what are those “social effects”? What does Victor Rios mean when he writes “These young adult deviants do not become on their 18th birthday, rather they are systematically constructed as criminals and face the wrath of the penal state and criminalization as early as 8 years of age” (41). In what ways do you think this statement is true or false? Fully explain your answer. Rios discloses that Black and Latino youth have been labeled “deviant” (41). From his explanations, why are they labeled this way, and how does this label affect them? How do the problems they face in the job sector (Rios 42) account for how young Black and Latino males may view their future outcomes? Identify the reason/reasons that the 28 non-violent offenders were treated in similar ways to Tyrone and Jose: the two violent offenders (Rios 43). Explain what Jonathan Simon means by "crisis of ‘governance’" (43). Explain what Rios means by his statement that “the government had become an abusive step-parent figure” (43). According to him, what are the effects of this “abusive” relationship? What does Rios...
Words: 584 - Pages: 3
...This week we were assigned a few articles to read and analyze. Reflecting on this weeks reading, an assessment can be made about the way America has handled crime and prevention within the criminal justice system. As a country the United States is the world’s leader in incarceration with 2.2 individuals behind bars in either prison or jails. Political agendas fueled along with the outcry from the public fueled the legislatures to increase crime sentences thereby increasing the incarceration levels to extremely high levels. By leading the world in incarceration in addition to the crime rates the public can see just how poorly run the system truly is and how we can aim to fix it. Connections can be made between Travis et al.'s (2014) illustration...
Words: 585 - Pages: 3
...39C 21 February 2013 Essay of Prospective Claims: Michelle Alexander discusses how mass incarceration has ruined and dismantled many lives of young African Americans. The problem she discusses so passionately in her book is a relevant problem in our society today. Ever since Ronald Reagan’s presidency and forward, campaigns have been targeting crime and especially rug related crimes. While it is clear that many of these young African Americans are going to prison due to drug related crimes, stopping the war on drugs altogether is not the solution. Although stopping the drug war may seem efficient for stopping the incarceration of young blacks in the present, it does not guarantee that these same people will not commit other crimes. The cost for stopping the drug war is allowing drug usage and distribution to run rampant which can cause the society and the neighborhoods around the areas to become unsafe. Alexander discusses how there is no way around this issue and dismantling the system of mass incarceration is the only resolution; however if these poor neighborhoods were funded with government money, drug abuse can potentially become lower or even be stopped. Alexander is also discussing how a handful of reforms cannot be a solution to the problem. She argues that all the financial grants that are given to police departments for drug arrests and racial profiling should be halted. She believes that by halting the funding and supplies of mass incarceration are only scratching...
Words: 2303 - Pages: 10
...Ever since the first prison opened in the United States in 1790, incarceration has been the center of the nation's criminal justice system. Over this 200 year period many creative alternatives to incarceration have been tried, and many at a much lower cost than imprisonment. It wasn't until the late 1980's when our criminal justice systems across the country began experiencing a problem with overcrowding of facilities. This problem forced lawmakers to develop new options for sentencing criminal offenders. Unlike jail or prisons, which create an expensive cycle of violence and crime, these alternatives actually prevent violence and strengthen communities. Community corrections programs provide many communities with local punishment options as an alternative to prison or jail. These sanction programs are lower cost alternatives to the increased prison and jail constructions, based on the cost per offender. These programs provide local courts, state departments of corrections, and state parole boards with a broad range of correctional options for offenders under their jurisdiction. The overall goals of these programs are to fit the appropriate punishment with the crime, the offender is punished and held accountable, and the public safety is protected. There are several programs available as an alternative to incarceration, the earliest being probation. Probation is still widely used for first time offenders. This program allows the offender a sort of second chance in the community...
Words: 933 - Pages: 4
...Dr. Heather Ann Thompson, in her essay “Why Mass Incarceration Matters: Rethinking Crisis, Decline, and Transformation in Postwar American History” suggests that the twentieth had a large increase in incarceration, and that more people were incarcerated in the United States than any other countries worldwide (the cause being drugs). Also, she claims that ten times more American were imprisoned during the last decade of the twentieth century than were killed in the Vietnam War. Dr. Heather Ann Thompson supports and develops her claim by first divulging into statistics on how the United States has the highest incarceration rate worldwide. She starts diving into past situations boasting how “The American justice system has changed dramatically in the wake of major historical revolutions” which is very valid, just look at the end result of the abolition of slavery. It caused tension and resulted in a civil war. In Thompson's article, she makes a persuading contention that white individuals take advantage from mass incarceration. Thompson utilizes particular case from states, for example, Oregon, and California in which groups thrived off detainment facilities and the work they gave. Thompson...
Words: 528 - Pages: 3
...Paternal incarceration creates a temporary single-parenting system, in which the mother acts as sole guardian, but imprisonment tends to produce far worse effects on children than do other causes of parent-child separation (Lowenstein, 1986). Separation due to death or similar causes disrupt the family, yet these happen to provide a “focal concern around which the remaining members can rally and mitigate the impact of their loss”; quite to the contrary, separation due to imprisonment rarely elicits any such response because of the stigma with which it is associated (Fritsch & Burkhead, 1981, p. 84). Typically, a child faced with the social stigma of paternal incarceration will often also encounter embarrassment and shame, which may in turn further inhibit the ability of the child to adequately adjust to the anxieties resulting from the separation through incarceration (Hannon et al., 1984; Lowenstein, 1986). The deleterious effects on child behavior, of course, are that prolonged periods of shame and embarrassment may promote depression or behavior typical of withdrawal, such as an unwillingness to engage in social interactions. Unlike other causes for paternal separation, paternal absence due to imprisonment is a multi-dimensional phenomenon, which takes on different meaning depending on the manner in which the particular cause for the incarceration is perceived—either as being “normatively approved” or as “bearing a stigma” (Lowenstein, 1984). While there is a correlation...
Words: 1622 - Pages: 7
...state, federal, and private prisons, and more than 5 million Americans were under other forms of custodial supervision, including probation and parole, for a total of 7.2 million Americans-3.2 percent of the US population-under some form of custodial of supervisory control of the criminal justice system (120).” African American men make up a majority of the US prison population. This is bad being that some African American men are look down upon. It was mentioned that all African Americans men that are incarcerated is about 5 percent compared to the 1 percent white men that are incarcerated. This means that African Americans men are 10 times more like to be incarnated then white men. Thesis: The purpose of this essay is to analyze the causes to African American incarceration such as racial profiling, sentencing disparities, and exonerations; having a life is not what they have....
Words: 667 - Pages: 3
...Opinion Essay: Professor Michelle Alexander's speech The New Jim Crow (2010) In its broadest sense, The New Jim Crow (2010) provides a compelling analysis of how and why mass incarceration is happening in America. It offers an appropriate and original framework for understanding mass incarceration, its roots, link to Jim Crow, the modern caste system, and what must be done to eliminate it (Alexander, 2010). Alexander’s The New Jim Crow (2010) can be said to be a grand wake-up call in the midst of a long slumber of indifference to the poor and vulnerable. It also befits being described as a timely and stunning guide to the labyrinth of discrimination, racism, and propaganda policies cloaked under other names that comprise justice in America....
Words: 346 - Pages: 2
