Essay On Incarceration Rates

Rising Rates of Incarceration in the United States: Causes for the increasing rates
The rising number of incarcerations in the United States is a large cause of concerns for the entire United States. We will look into the potential cause for the rising rates of incarcerations through the eyes of a sociologist with specific clarifiers of structural functionalism and the conflict theory. Is it to be blamed on the criminal or the culture that is creating the crime. Over the course of this paper we will see some of the compelling evidence for both of these theories and the potential causes for the rising rates of incarceration.
Throughout the years many changes to the legal system have come to pass, there are new laws every day that are put into place to protect the law abiding citizens. With these changing laws has come a change in the prisons and jails of the United States. There have been many studies to try to find a reason on the increasing rate of incarcerations and studies on the numbers of specific ethnic groups that are being housed. The studies found that most of the people in the prison were parolees that had for one reason or another violated their parole. More than just the rate of the …show more content…
The United States has justified the amount of incarcerations by saying it is protecting the law abiding citizens by containing the ones that would enact in crime. The government has put into place the rules and regulations to put those that create crime and participate in crime behind bars protecting the law abiding citizens. This is true the criminals are behind bars and the good citizens are safe to walk the street but this is also not entirely true. People speed in their cars or run a stop sign all the time they are breaking the law but they pay their fines. The people that end up in jail are the ones who cannot afford their