Incarceration: The Rising Jail Population and How it Affects the Government
Introduction
Incarceration is the process of separating criminal offenders from the society for a period of time and then taking back with the hope that he has reformed his ways. This is the most common correctional approach in most countries. However, the United States has overdone it when it comes to incarceration of criminal offenders. For the past few decades the United States has recorded a remarkable increase in the numbers of those incarcerated. In the 1970 the population of prisoners was estimated at 300,000 (Reitz, 2006).
However, this numbers has more than tripled in three decades with the population of prisoners in 2000 being estimated at 2 million. With over 2 million prisoners today, the United States has become the country with the largest population of prisoners in the world. It has been estimated that 25% of world prisoners’ population are found in the United States. The number of prisons has increased from 5 in the 1970 to over 100 today. Many have argued that the increased is due to the commercial value attached to the countries prison system.
Statistics indicate that though the rate of crime in the United States is falling, the number of prisoners is rising (Pelaez, 2008). One factor attributed to the increased number of prisoners is the commercialization of this essential justice system. The prisons have become a commercial entity for the government, where prisoners are contracted to provide labor services to private entities. The prisoners are contracted to work in companies such as; architecture company, construction company, advertising company, food supply and armed security.
This contracting of prisoners has become an important source of revenue for the government and therefore provides an incentive for incarcerating people. People are now being incarcerated for the pettiest of crimes. Today the law stipulates that those found in possession of even trace amount of drug substances should be sentenced for a minimal of five years without parole. Statistic indicates that 97% of 125,000 prisoners of the federal government have been sentenced of non-violent crime.
Factors for Incarceration
Social Economic Factors
There are various factors that led to the increased rates of incarceration in the United States. One and the greatest factor that is the determinant of the rate of incarceration in the society is the social economic status of the people. Social economic status indicates the citizens’ ability to gain access to the basic needs and other necessities of life. Poor social economic status in a community or an individual means that the individual/ community is finding it difficult to meet their own needs and have to find alterative source of livelihood. A direct relationship has been established between levels of crime in particular neighborhood and the prevailing social-economic conditions. Neighborhood that has well educated individuals, with good sources of income have lower levels of crime. These necessity and limitation of resources forces people to get into them is the social economic status of the individuals.
Social economic status of a given society is big push factors for people committing crime. According to Western, Kleykamp & Rosenfeld (2005), the rate wages and employment have been falling since 1993. This falls has in turn affected the economic status of different members of the society forcing them to enter into criminal activities in order to meet their needs. Level of education is a social factor that also determines the rate of crime and consequently the rate of incarceration. Apart from economically empowering citizens by providing them with basic skills, education also changes the individual attitude and way of thinking. A study conducted by Western, Kleykamp & Rosenfeld (2005), the numbers of prisoners with less than high school education is more three time higher than that of prisoner with some form of college education.
Ethnic Backgrounds
Another factor is ethnic and family background. Statistics show existence of huge racial disparities among those being incarcerated in the United States (Western, Kleykamp & Rosenfeld, 2005). One reason behind this is the existence of economic and social inequalities among the different races of the country. The African American race has recorded the highest number of admission into the countries prisons followed by Hispanic with the whites forming a very small portion of the prison population (Western, Kleykamp & Rosenfeld, 2005).
The African American and the Hispanic form two thirds of the entire prison population. In some cases the ratio of African American imprisoned to that of whites can go as a high as 1:7. For a long period in the United States history member s of the black and Hispanic communities have been viewed as second class citizen and therefore denied equal opportunity for education and employment. This people had to find alternative means of survival and hence most of them ventured into the informal sectors such as music and sports and those who could not find a way into this arena had to rely on illegal means in order to survivor. The racial disparity in the number of people being incarcerated is also dependent of the political and administration structures.
The prison system and the criminal justice system has for a long time been seen as system to control and enclose members of the society that the elite or the ruling class view as threats. The ruling elite may have felt that the colored races may have been a threat to their stay in power and therefore use the prison to contain such aggression. The law enforcement system has also encouraged the existence of this disparity. The stereotype that some races are associated with crime and violent behavior still prevail among law enforcement for organs and this may have led to the loss of objectivity of the enforcement.
Gender and Age
There is a huge gender differences in the American prison population. Ninety percent of the entire prison population are men with their figures increasingly rising. According to Western (2007), the men are more likely to commit criminal offences because they are charged with the responsibility of raising their families. When they have no means of taking care of their families, they result to engaging in criminal activities such as petty theft and drug peddling. The number of women prisoners has been on the rise. This has mainly been attributed to most men going to jail and living their women with no means of taking care of themselves and their children (Western, 2007). These women are also forced to join criminal activities in order to make ends meet.
Most prisoners are also young people at the twenties and early thirties. Western (2007) has stated that, two thirds of the entire prison population is composed of people between the age of 18 and 35 years. A survey conducted revealed that majority of the incarcerated men were young, had less than 12 years of education and were jobless at the point of incarceration (Western, 2007).
Values
Individual and community values also play significant role in determining the prevalence of crime and consequently the rate of incarceration. The community value systems and level of organization determines the prevalence of criminal activities. There are communities that tolerate criminal activities among their midst while there are organized communities that are strict on criminal issues and other misconducts. The value exercised by the American justice system has led to increased rate of incarceration. Unequal distribution of economic and social opportunities among the American society has led to increased crime by the discriminated groups for survival purpose and as a sign of discontent with system.
Mental Health
Mental health has contributed to the increased rates of incarceration in two major ways. (1) In several occasion mental disorders has been a major driving factor for people engaging in criminal offenses such as murders and rape. Such people commit this crime due to the push provided by the mental state of health. (2) The second way through which mental health has led to increased rates of incarceration is the policies that patients with mental health disorders should be incarcerated instead of being treated.
Nature of Incarceration in the United States
Impacts of incarceration
Incarceration can be described as the act of isolating an individual from his usual environment and from the society for a period of time and then bringing him or her back after this period. This usually has various impacts on the individual being incarcerated, his family and the society he leaves behind and the government which is incarcerating him.
Impacts on incarcerated Individual
An individual suffers various effects when they go through prison. First, the individual may undergo a positive transformation making him to turn away from his criminal lifestyle. Prison times gives one ample time to reflect on which direction he or she wants his life to head and also to reflect on the consequences of his action. Incarceration may also result in the individual devolving a more negative attitude towards laws. After going through prison, an individual gets a criminal record. Though people say that prisons are correctional facilities that are aimed at improving the value and status of people, this is not quite the beliefs of many. Ones a person has gone to prison and has obtained a criminal record he is hardly accepted back into the society. It becomes very difficult for such a person to find a decent job.
When such a person cannot find a decent job he forced to revert back to his criminal ways because he has limited option. This put to question the effectiveness of incarceration as deterrent to repeat crime. The incarcerated individual may also be hardened by the prison life and become more entrenched into the criminal than before. The prison contains all manner of people who have committed various forms of crimes. Since they have been enclosed in the same environment they are bound to interact and influence each other, either positively or in most cases negatively. The tough atmosphere of prison also acts to develop a hard core attitude in the prisoners and therefore may not result in an attitude change in the incarcerated individual.
Incarceration also has effects on the imprisoned person’s family and social life. According to statistics two nearly two third of the inmates in the United States prison are young married individual in their twenties or early thirties. There is incarceration means that their intimate relationships with their marital partners are interfered. Some couples end up in separation as results of one of the partner being incarcerated for long period of time. Relationship of the detainees and their children is also affected. The detainee must explain to his or her children why he has to go away from home. His interaction with other members of the society is also interfered.
Impacts on the Family and the Society of the Incarcerated Individual
Families to the incarnated individual also suffer as result of one of their own being taken away from them. One form of suffering that these families undergo is economic suffering. Statistics have indicated that ninety percent of inmates in the United States prisons are men (Western, 2007). These men usually come from low income backgrounds where the men are usually the sole bread winners for the family. When these men are incarcerated, the family suffers economically as their bread winner has been taken way from them. Such turn of event results in a lot pain for the families. The scenario is also attributed to the increased number of women inmates as the women are forced to turn to criminal activities such as drug peddling and prostitution in order to fill the gap left by the incarcerate partners.
The families also suffer psychologically. Loss of financial support and the suffering that comes with it may cause a great deal of psychological torture for the children and spouse of the incarcerated individual. Lack of social and moral support, which was initially provided by the incarcerated partner, also lead to emotional suffering on the remaining spouse and the children. Being imprisoned is also an act that is associated with some bit of stigma in our society. The spouse and the children of the incarcerated individual may also suffer psychologically as a result of self stigmatization or stigmatization by others.
The society also experiences various effect when the incarcerated individual in removed from among them. These effects are both positive and negative. If the incarcerated person was actually guilty of the crime he was convicted of then the society will be happy to get rid off a criminal from their midst. As a result of the incarceration, the feels a little bit safer and secure. On the hand, as explained above incarceration may lead to increased incidents of crime as dependent also turns to crime, the incarcerated individual reverting back to criminal activities after release due to limited economic opportunities.
Impacts on the government and tax payers
The process of incarcerating involves a lot of economic cost to the government and tax payers. Due to the increase in the number of prisoners prison facilities have had to be constructed. These facilities have had to be constructed from the tax payers’ money. The funds used to establish these facilities could have been more useful when used in other areas of development.
The country economy is also affected by the imprisonment of such a large portion of the country’s population. This is especially when considering the bulk of imprisoned group is made up of young working people of between age 18 and 35 years. This means that the most productive portion of the population is the one being affected by this incarceration of American citizens.
References
Pelaez V.(2008). The Prison Industry in the United States: Big Business or a New Form of Slavery. Global Research. May 3, 2011. http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=8289
Western B. (2007). Mass Imprisonment and Economic Inequality. Social Research. 74 (2): 509- 532
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