More than 3 billion people are living in poverty across the world, among those an estimated 43.1 million people in America are living in poverty. There are many causes of poverty, but mass incarceration is one of the most prominent ones. When people get out of prison or jail, they have a very low chance of getting a job and finding a home because they have the label of being a criminal. People tend to explain poverty especially poverty in America is that people are lazy and do not want to work, but that is not the reason at all. The government is ultimately responsible for distinguishing who is in poverty and what measures are going to be done to help those people get assistance. But because people do not particularly talk about this …show more content…
Mass incarceration is defined as the drastic increase of people in prison and/or jail, and the high rates of racial disparities in prison. From slavery to the Jim Crow laws, now to mass incarceration. People identify how history seems to be repeating itself, but not being as straightforward as it was in the 1800s. Because of the “war on drugs” specifically people of color have been incarcerated for minor crimes. Most of these people cannot afford a decent lawyer so they have to plead out and do their time in prison. The problem with this is that when these people get out they cannot get a job or get housing because they have been labeled as a criminal. This affects the poverty percentage because when people are incarcerated they do not have an access for education or real world skills that they need when they get out. Therefore, when they are released from prison they resort to crime as a source of income because it is so hard for them to earn a job, or they even become homeless because they cannot live in government housing and have no place to go. Because of the stereotype that America has placed on blacks and hispanics, they become more targeted for police searches than white people, which heavily influences whether they are arrested and processed.
Society commonly refers to people in America who are living in poverty as people being lazy or saying that there are plenty of jobs and that
Poverty is everywhere in America, and there will always be poverty. Nobody has found a solution to it. If you live in a city you will probably see it every day. A lot of times people do not have a
The book explores the effect of mass incarceration on low-income areas, poverty places, and poor demographics. It explains that the high incarceration has a direct correlation to social problems of individuals that happen within these communities. It shows statistics of these poverty places having an increase in percentage of being sent to prison. I plan to use this in my research by providing the audience information on how individuals and citizens of communities
When you think of mass incarceration it is imperative to look at the causes that affect minorities. One major thing that produced an increase in mass incarceration is the war on drugs. The war on drugs has impacted minorities in a major way. The war on drugs pushed policymakers to structure laws that were targeting underprivileged individual mainly minorities group. In addition, “The deinstitutionalisation of people with mental illnesses, and punitive sentencing policies such as three-strike laws (mandating life imprisonment for third offences of even relatively minor felonies) and mandatory minimum sentences for specific offence, even for some first0time offenders undoubtedly helped to both launch mass incarceration and keep it going” (Wilderman, & Wang, 2017, p. 1466). The war on drugs came during a time when crack cocaine became widespread in the black community. The popularity of crack cocaine became prevalent and accessible for many low-income individuals. Therefore, the high rate of crime that was induced by the crack epidemic forced many jobs to leave the communities. However, the structuring of laws put more emphasis on crack cocaine than powder cocaine. Not to mention, crack cocaine is prevalent in minority communities, and powder cocaine is present in the majority community. According to Martensen (2012), “Not only does this deny accessible goods and services to local residents, it likewise decreases the local job opportunities available for community members” (p. 214). Consequently, many African American called on the police to take action against the same people that looked just like them. Crutchfield, & Weeks (2015) states, “Some of the changes during this period of increased incarceration that disadvantaged people of color coming into the justice system were implemented with the help and support of African American political leadership” (p. 109). Therefore, lawmakers had to come up with a solution to address the issue. Law-makers created laws that put emphasis on arresting drug dealers for selling drugs. These small-time drug dealers were becoming a hazard to the community. However, the laws begin to cause harm to all that looked brown or black whether
America government do not begin to cover the full scale of poverty, and poverty affects people
We have a Criminal Justice System that will treat you better if you're rich and guilty than if you're poor and innocent. The United States has 25% of the worlds prisoners, weaponizing its black decent. In 1972, the prison population was around 300,000. Today, the prison population accounts for 2.3 million people. Mass incarceration mostly affects people of color, young to middle aged black men in particular. It began after the Civil War when they were arrested for extremely minor crimes. Slavery was an economic system that was essential, so when it was abolished, improvises were made. Mass incarceration is the product of a century's long historical process.
America has been a land for the free since it became a dream place for people to come and have a successful life. In this case, America hasn’t been as grateful to people. They have more people in jail than any other country in the world and it’s still increasing. This main cause called mass incarceration brought America to the leading country that is incarcerating people at a high rate mainly sending those of color behind bars as said in web source A.C.L.U. This brings a lot of issues into a great nation such as the U.S.A. in a place where people should be proud to live in and represent. The topic of mass incarceration hasn’t been a major issue that politician’s really talk about. As well as the politician’s the people haven’t taken much actions to change it. Mass incarceration brings many troubles for America to deal with besides the other countless issues it has as a nation. The causes of mass incarceration are many, but the main important are overcrowded prisons, discrimination to criminals after jail, and imprisoning many people for long time periods based on small offenses that they have done. The causes of mass incarceration continue to affect the nation greatly as there are more people going behind bars at a high rate. Since the 1980’s there has been an increase of incarceration. It all started with the use of cocaine in the 1980’s that made “Policies that greatly excaberated racial disperities in incarceration rates… President Ronald Reagan officially announced the
At the simplest level, mass incarceration is defined as the imprisonment of a large amount of people. However, that does not tell the whole story. The majority of people incarcerated are minorities, and although mass incarceration began as a system of unjust racial and social control, today it continues for many political reasons including government grants, swaying voter opinion, and for-profit prison revenue.
Mass incarceration is a term used by historians and sociologists to describe the substantial increase in the number of incarcerated people in the United States' prisons over the past forty years. Mass incarceration comparatively and historically have extreme rates of imprisonment among young African Americans. The united states imprisons more of its people than any of its country in the world. It has became a giant industry in the US. Mass incarceration has has been going on for decades amongst blacks and Latinos. People like rapper Meek Mill, and Kalief Browder are just a few that were arrested for petty crimes and sent to solitary confinement and or/sent to prison for petty crimes.
Incarceration rates have increased from 400,000 people in 1975 to 2.1 million in 2003; a fivefold increase, making the United States a leader in rates compared to other nations (Morenoff & Harding, 2014). These numbers bear a great burden on individuals, families, and communities in various ways. First, with 700,000 individuals being released from prison annually comes difficulty in reentering society both socially and economically; difficulty finding work, education, strained relationships, and social stigma (Morenoff & Harding, 2014). Second, the increasing rates of incarceration are disproportionately and unfairly impacting minorities, specifically African-Americans, and poor urban communities (Morenoff & Harding, 2014). A New York Times article by Furman and Holtz-Eakin (2016) states that $80 billion dollars--$600 per household--is spent on corrections annually, or a 1,700 percent increase in the federal prison budget in just thirty years. These increases have a deep historical background, many complex and interweaving factors, and require urgent reform.
The mass incarceration rate in America has been an ongoing issue for a very long time. The U.S is known to have one of the largest incarceration rate than any other country. Some of the problem is mostly related to the drug war that is still ongoing. The prisoners that are serving time are mostly people who are nonviolent drug offenders. I believe that mass incarceration is an issue that need to be resolved. Being incarcerated for a nonviolent crime is not helping our country at all, but rather, it hurting this country. It also costs taxpayer’s money just to keep or maintain these prisoners that are there due to non-offenses. Mass incarceration is an issue
Mass incarceration has had a huge impact in the United States on a multitude of levels. The costs of many people in jail has had a huge impact on the U.S. economy. Using taxpayers money for funding mass incarceration has left less money for other programs much needed in our society, such as higher education and health care. Mass incarceration has broken up families and led to the decay of communities. Without a doubt, mass incarceration has impacted the lives of African Americans. This group of people has been the most affected by this phenomenon. (Human Rights Watch & Golvin, 2008).
The United States defines poverty for a family of four as being less than $16,036 per year, or $4,009 per person (Leone 12). People find themselves under this line for an innumerable amount of reasons. Some of these causes are under one's control and others are greater factors beyond an individual's power. Each family or individual person has unique and separate reasons for living in a state poverty. There is no way to try and define them all. Focusing in, three main topics arise that encompass the most predominant reasons for a person to fall into poverty. Education, family life and influence, along with the business cycle may work individually or together to cause poverty. These three leading
Mass incarceration has caused major problems in the United States. . Economically, it is incredibly expensive. The cost averages out to around $100,000 per prisoner per year (Schwirtz). This is a huge sum. According to the Center for Economic and Policy Research, the “...federal, state, and local governments spent about $75 billion on corrections…” in 2008 alone (Schmitt, Warner, and Gupta). To put this into perspective, that is three times the amount of money spent by the Department of Transportation (U.S Gov. Printing Office). It is clear that the United States cares deeply about the safety of its citizens and justice for criminals.Obviously this is extremely important, and is the responsibility of the government. However, mass incarceration can only be justified if it is actually making our country a safer place and is reducing crime. Unfortunately this is not the case. The correlation between higher incarceration and lower crime rates is quite small (Wyler). If prison populations were reduced, crime would not run rampant. In fact, New York, New Jersey, and California have all worked over the last fifteen years or so “...have reduced their prison populations by about 25% while
Mass incarceration has been disguised to look like a safety measure to get the “bad guys” off the street when in reality it is just a warehouse for African Americans. Once labeled as a criminal all of ones rights are stripped of them, reflecting the same principles that we saw during slavery, expect now that person becomes a slave of the state instead of to another person. This label makes going to school, getting a job, and voting, almost impossible, and without proper programs to rehabilitate these individuals into society, they will never become a productive part of society again. Rios (2011) showed how mass incarceration played a role in the everyday lives of these boys, all of them were asked to write the names of people, friends or family, that were incarcerated they all knew at least six. These boys watched their friends and family get locked up for petty crimes, do their crime and get thrown back into society without a way to improve their situation. Many tried to change but fighting against constant criminalization is hard and many fall back into the cycle of crime and mass incarceration. These young boys see no other option, the idea of college is a goal but it’s extremely foreign and the role models that these boys have to look up to are usually the men that just got out
Are all Americans grateful for the things they have? What if Americans do not to have the proper basic needs? Many Americans do face this situation and it is called poverty. The top three causes of poverty in United States are lack of education, unemployment and the high cost of health insurance. Americans can overcome the high rate of poverty and alleviate their struggles by maintaining and furthering their education which will lead to higher paying jobs and with good medical benefits.