Gopnik Mass Incarceration Analysis

Mass incarceration is ideally a part of American history. The increasing number of the prison population is alarming contrasting to the decrease of crime in the United States. The Caging of America depicts the relationship between mass incarceration and racism and mass incarceration and the crime rate. Gopnik shows that during the period of which incarceration rates were going up in the entire country, the crime rate was dropping, particularly in New York, therefore showing the cause of the crime fall had no linkage with prison over population. Gopnik sheds light to high rates of incarceration and the fact that incarceration should not be a method of crime control. The basis of using incarceration as a crime control method is the ideology …show more content…
In simplifier terms, individuals caught of possession in minutely small amounts enough for personal consumption will not receive a criminal record or jail sentence. However, despite decriminalizing marijuana being a necessary step to end the epidemic of imprisonment, it ends up being just one substantial factor that is linked to many other mitigating factors that could possibly end the epidemic of imprisonment and incarceration completely. I do agree with Gopnik’s argument that it is a very proactive step to end the epidemic of imprisonment through the decriminalization of marijuana. Decriminalizing marijuana is just one substantial factor in a chain of causes that are linked to a complete end in the epidemic of imprisonment and mass incarceration because the epidemic of imprisonment is aided by criminal racial disparities, mandatory sentencing which play a mitigating factor in the rise of the prison population and the war on drugs which is a very crucial driver of mass …show more content…
mandatory minimum sentencing causes someone who may use marijuana for personal purposes to be imprisoned for the same amount of time as someone who sells marijuana on a large scale or other violent crimes. The surprising fact that mandatory minimums are mostly applied in the federal court for drug cases shows the percentage of persons that are likely to be sent to prison for a long period of time thus increasing the prison population. Subsequently reducing, removing mandatory minimum or decriminalizing marijuana reduces the amount of people being issued a sentence of blind justice by the judge who has no discretion will have a domino effect upon the amount of people in prison for non-violent drug offenses such as marijuana possession. Among people who receive mandatory minimum sentences in 2011, 38 % were Latinos and 31 % were black, this shows a correlation between racial disparities and mandatory