Mass Incarceration A Public Policy Issue Essay - 1329 Words

Mass incarceration became a public policy issue in the United States in the early 2010s. Now in 2016, there is still much debate over the country’s incarcerated population and incarceration rate. The nation has the highest incarcerated population in the world, with 2,217,947 inmates, in front of China with 1,649,804. America incarcerates 693 inmates per 100,000 residents, only the African island nation Seychelles incarcerates at a higher rate, with 799 for every 100,000 residents. The problem of mass incarceration continues to be assessed in various contexts. Recent analyses are historian Elizabeth Hinton’s From the War on Poverty to the War on Crime, legal scholar Michelle Alexander’s The New Jim Crow, and criminologist Dr. Elizabeth Brown’s â€Å"Toward Refining the Criminology of Mass Incarceration: Group-Based Trajectories of U.S. States, 1977—2010.† With regard to solutions, considerable attention has been paid to the federal prison system. Between 1980 and 2013, the federal prison population increased by 790% from 24,640 to 219,298. Since peaking, the number of federal prisoners has lowered to 190,452 today. The decline is the result of criminal justice reform efforts in the past few years, such as former U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder’s modification of the Department of Justice’s charging policies in 2010 and the U.S. Sentencing Commission’s passage of Amendment 782 (â€Å"drugs minus two†) in 2014. In spite of their moderate success, such responses have failed toShow MoreRelatedRacism And Incarceration Rates Among African Americans And Hispanics Essay1581 Words   |  7 PagesStates prison system and the gap of incarceration rates among African Americans, Hispanics, and White males. According to a research by Prison Policy Initiative both African Americans and Hispanics are imprisoned at 5.1 ti mes and 1.8 times higher than the rate of White Americans for every 100,000 incarcerations, respectively. 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Prior to studying sociology and public policy, I was very uninformed and oblivious to the injusticesRead MoreThe New Jim Crow : Mass Incarceration1239 Words   |  5 PagesIn 2013, Michelle Alexander published her book, The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness, hoping it served as a call to action. Immediately this book received a huge amount of attention because of the controversial topics presented. This book opened a lot of people’s eyes to the term colorblindness, a sociological perspective referring to the disregard of racial characteristics. There is no racial data or profiling, no classifications, and no categorizations or distinctionsRead MoreMass Incarceration During The United States1322 Words   |  6 PagesMonroe Craver Mrs. Gallos English 3 Honors 30 March 2017 Mass Incarceration in the United States There are too many people in prison in our country and any people in prison today are non-violent drug offenders. 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