While slavery in America was ended by the US Civil War, racial discrimination was legally retained in the Jim Crow Laws. These laws, which were prevalent in all southern states, separating black and white Americans in all social settings. The Jim Crow Laws were turned over in the 1960s heavily due to the Civil Rights Movement. However, despite the trends in law enforcement allow discrimination to continue in other forms.
Mass incarceration refers to America’s experimentation in incarceration, defined by historically extreme rates of imprisonment and by the concentration of imprisonment among young, African American men living in disadvantaged neighborhoods. What we see from mass incarceration and the War on Drugs is that people of color experience …show more content…
The United States incarcerates more of its citizens than any other nation in the world. In 1972, jail and prison populations were less than 200,000 increasing to 2.2 million today which has led to prison overcrowding and has substantial strains on state budgets across the country. Mass incarceration came after a series of law enforcement and sentencing policy changes on the “tough of crime” era and the official beginning of the War on Drugs. Today, there are more people behind bars for a drug offense than the number of people who were in prison or jail for any crime in …show more content…
According to the 2012 study conducted by The Vera Institute of Justice on prison costs, state corrections expenditures have nearly quadrupled over the past two decades. The study broke down the costs to taxpayers in each state per inmate. The lowest cost was in Kentucky, where citizens pay $14,603 per inmate per year. The highest cost was in New York, where citizens pay $60,076. New York spends over $3.5 billion a year to fund its prison operation having an average prison population of around 60,000. It is extremely important to note that having higher costs per inmates means having to pay more taxes to fund that state’s correctional facilities. The study that doing the reverse of “lowering the costs per inmate may reflect poorer safety and higher recidivism due to less investment in corrections employees and programs.” Therefore, it is important that the US doesn’t pressure states with higher costs per inmate to lower their investment, rather states should invest in developing more policies to safely reduce rates of
Mass incarceration refers to America’s experimentation in incarceration, defined by historically extreme rates of imprisonment and by the concentration of imprisonment among young, African American men living in disadvantaged neighborhoods. What we see from mass incarceration and the War on Drugs is that people of color experience …show more content…
The United States incarcerates more of its citizens than any other nation in the world. In 1972, jail and prison populations were less than 200,000 increasing to 2.2 million today which has led to prison overcrowding and has substantial strains on state budgets across the country. Mass incarceration came after a series of law enforcement and sentencing policy changes on the “tough of crime” era and the official beginning of the War on Drugs. Today, there are more people behind bars for a drug offense than the number of people who were in prison or jail for any crime in …show more content…
According to the 2012 study conducted by The Vera Institute of Justice on prison costs, state corrections expenditures have nearly quadrupled over the past two decades. The study broke down the costs to taxpayers in each state per inmate. The lowest cost was in Kentucky, where citizens pay $14,603 per inmate per year. The highest cost was in New York, where citizens pay $60,076. New York spends over $3.5 billion a year to fund its prison operation having an average prison population of around 60,000. It is extremely important to note that having higher costs per inmates means having to pay more taxes to fund that state’s correctional facilities. The study that doing the reverse of “lowering the costs per inmate may reflect poorer safety and higher recidivism due to less investment in corrections employees and programs.” Therefore, it is important that the US doesn’t pressure states with higher costs per inmate to lower their investment, rather states should invest in developing more policies to safely reduce rates of