U.S. Prison System and Its Populations: Whites vs. Minorities

Research shows that individuals of African American descent are imprisoned more often than Caucasians. When it comes to prison, African American males seem to be discriminated against. In 2001, a total of 16.6% of African American males were incarcerated in a State or Federal prison (Bonczar, 2003). According to the Bonczar (2003), one in three African American

Minorities remain overrepresented in crime, offending, victimization, and all stages of the criminal justice process especially confinement. Overrepresentation alludes to a situation in which a greater part of a particular group is present at various stages within the justice system than would be expected based on its part in the general population (Rosich, 2007). Minorities have always had a larger population in the prison system and after the Civil War they were overrepresented in American prison. There are a few reasons as to why races are disproportionately which are denial of jobs, poverty, and it is felt that police have bias and

The trend of African American males between the ages of 25 and 29 has seen a dramatic increase of incarceration. Attention has been focusing on areas of housing, education, and healthcare but the most prominent problem for African American males is the increase in the incarceration rate. African American males between the ages of 25 and 29 incarceration rate has been thought, by many, to be caused by economic factors such as under employment or unemployment, poor housing, lack of education, and lack of healthcare. Yet, others believe it is due to the imbalance of minorities within the criminal justice system, such as judges, lawyers, and lawmakers.

For example, “between 1980 and 2000, the rate of black incarceration nearly tripled. The black-to-white incarceration ratio increased to about eight to one during this period. The reach of mass incarceration has risen to such high levels that some analysts view it as altering normative life-course experiences for blacks in low-income neighborhoods” (Finsterbusch, 2013, p.136). Furthermore, the incarceration rates are higher for drug sentencing, the racial disparities include African Americans and Hispanics and this also includes juvenile arrests which are higher for these groups compared to whites. When looking at these numbers we need to resolve the issues that remain with racial divisions and the criminal justice system. We can take steps by making changes in the justice system at all levels such as establish a National Criminal Justice Commission, eliminate mandatory minimum sentences and develop and implement training to reduce racial bias which are a few examples provided by the Sentencing Project,

The United States of America has the largest prison population in the world. The United States incarcerates six hundred ninety-three people per one hundred thousand people and boasts an incarceration rate that is almost five times higher than most other countries (Wagner & Walsh, 2016). The incarceration rate within the U.S. is significantly higher than the incarceration rates of other countries due to the prevalence of institutional racism within the American criminal justice system. While the criminal justice system unjustly targets minority individuals, African Americans and Hispanics are especially targeted (Brennan & Spohn, 2009). African Americans and Hispanics account for a minority of the U.S. population but make up the majority of the U.S. prison population. Despite comprising only 13.6% of the U.S. population (Rastogi, Johnson, Hoeffel, and Drewery, 2011), African Americans account for 37.8% of all prisoners in the U.S. (Inmate Race, 2017). Hispanics are also targeted by the criminal justice system at abnormally high rates. Hispanics make up

I just want to take a second and have all of you guys close your eyes and think, think about you walking down the street drinking Dutch bros and your stopped by a police officer because of the color of your skin. How would you feel, (pick another person at random). Ok so imagine the people that have been victim to this, men and women of color who were stopped frisked, beaten and thrown into jail. Or the families who have lost love ones to corrupt, ignorant police officers. It’s sad. And it happens on nearly an everyday basis. Actually, a black man or black woman are killed about every 28 hours by law enforcement. Now isn’t that heartbreaking. Studies are shown that the legal system targets black and Hispanic men and women, and their communities. Another thing is that black and Hispanic people are given harsher punishments than white people for the same or similar offences. This study has been proved accurate multiple times. A 2012 research from washingtonpost.com that white people comprise about 62% of the U.S population and are victim of 49% of fatal police shootings. And black people comprise about 13% of the total U.S population and are victim to approximately 24% of all fatal police shooting. Black men and women have 2.5x more chances of being shot and killed by law enforcement and 5x more chances of being shot and killed if unarmed. 14% of monthly drug users are

The United States prison population has expanded at an increasingly rapid rate over that past several decades. Each day, more and more criminal offenders are sent to prisons; most of which were designed to house fewer inmates but are now packed to their limits. This “mass- incarceration era” as many scholars and commentators of the Criminal Justice System call it, is a result of several key issues that have created an environment within the correctional system that forces many inmates to serve longer prison sentences while increasing recidivism rates. Current federal and state sentencing policies have resulted in historically high rates of offender recidivism and the highest incarceration rates in the world (Warren, 2007). As a result, prison population and overcrowding has rapidly increased and has become a serious issue across the country however, a reform in sentencing policies, more early-release incentives, and reintegration back into society through rehabilitation will help reduce recidivism and prevent the continuing rise of prison populations. (change once paper is complete)

In America minorities have been over represented as offenders in the criminal justice system for years. DMC that is prevalent in the criminal justice and juvenile justice system is one that was discovered and has been discussed for decades. In 1988, over 20 years ago, the NCSJJAG reported that, “…disparate juvenile and criminal justice rates for minorities are not a new phenomenon.” (NCSJJAG, 1998), and unfortunately this phenomena still exists. In 2010, African Americans comprised 17% of all juveniles, but 31% of all arrests in America,” (Puzzanchera, 2013), and the disparities are also quite apparent in the Latinos. When one compares the rates of racial disparities to the rates of overall juvenile crime rates, the racial disparity rates have remained steady

When looking at the United States population statistical data from the United States 2010 Census, it showed that Asians made up 5%, Blacks made up 13%, Native Americans made up 2.9%, Hispanics made up 16%, and whites made 66% of the total population of the United States (2011) . When comparing this data against each other there is a disproportionate over representation of minorities in prison when comparing to the United States population. This leads to the sad conclusion that when it comes to the criminal justice system, race is still a factor in the law. The criminalization minorities tends to favor those that are of lighter skin with Asians and Whites getting incarcerated at lower percentages with the Model Minority myth helping in this process with the Asian inmates. The myth creates an anti-black ideology when explaining the Asian criminal justice system patterns where Blacks are seen deviant and seen as the problem minority needed to be taken care of and by consequence are incarcerated at a higher

More than half of the United States prison population is made up of African Americans and Latinos, this is nearly twice as their accumulated representation within thirty percent of the general population. As these minorities continue to be put in jail, the rates of racial disproportionality in the criminal justice system also continue to stagger. Crime commission, arrests, convictions, and sentencing are all apart of the many stages within

Racial background is a key factor for mass incarceration in this country which leads to segregation. The U.S. holds over 2.2 millions convicts across all of its prisons. Michelle Alexander, a writer and civil rights advocate, mentions that out of that number “more than 60 percent of those in prison come from African American and Latino communities”(Alexander). There’s to be a direct correlation between an individual's race and their likelihood of going to jail. Ethnic minority groups are destined on being sent to jail at one point in their lives. As nowadays, prisons are being used as a tool to segregate minorities from the rest of the American society by dividing them and by placing them in jail. Alexander also mentions that “mass incarnation

Over the last decade the prison population in the United States has increased but the total admissions has decreased. In 2004, the national statistics for the prison population showed 1,497,100 persons to be incarcerated from Federal Institutions to State Institutions. Ten years later in 2014, the prison population increased to 1,562,525. This increase in population is not as dramatic when it comes to comparing 2004 and 2014. However, comparing 2014 to 1978 there is a tremendous increase in population, the total population in 1978 was 307, 276. From the war on drugs to the increase numbers of homicides, in 36 years we have incarcerated over one million additional people. In one year, the justice system admitted 631,

Since the 1970's there has been a steady increase in the prison population where statistics now show from the BJS that more than one in every 100 adults are now imprisoned. Statistics from the "PEW" state that one in 30 men between the ages of 20-34 are behind bars; however just because there is an increase in the numbers it does not mean it's due to an increase in crime. To further emphasize just how significant the growth is, the population in 1970 was around 300,000 but now the population in 2008 is over 2.3 million (BJS 2006). However there is not necessarily a parallel increase with crime; instead experts are putting the growth down to popular

After a crime is committed, a felony would be sentenced to jail for a certain amount of years for committing a certain crime. Overtime, the population of those imprisoned have increased when comparing back to the beginning of imprisonment. Taking a look particularly on the American justice system, people from different ethnicities can be taken account for the incarcerated population, also known as those who are prison commits. However, those in prison can have an overall disportion amount of minorities in jail, given the African American male. With many of a certain minority group in jail, their sentencing takes a toll on not only them personally, but society as a whole. Missing men, broken relationships, and recidivism problems surfaces to

According to Frank Schmalleger “On January 1, 2013, the nation’s state and federal prisons held 1,571,013 inmates, of which 1,512,391 were serving sentences of a year or more. Slightly more than 7% (or 108,866) of those imprisoned were women” (Schmalleger, p. 429). After further examination of prison statistics based on race a huge disparity was evident between blacks and whites in prison. “ Whereas only and estimated 1,001 white men are imprisoned in the United States for every 100,000 white men in their late 20s, figures show and incarcerations rate of 6,927 black men for every 100,000 black men of the same age—seven times greater than the figure for whites” (Schmallager, p. 430).