Numbers do not lie. Louisiana is currently the world’s prison capital, holding more people in prison than any other U.S state by far. However, there is a living, breathing animal behind these numbers that must be brought to light. Why are so many people incarcerated for such long periods of times? What effects does mass imprisonment bring down (or up?) on the economy? This large scale imprisonment of American citizens may have beneficial monetary factors, but merely bandages a gaping wound that is significantly similar to modern day slavery. Prisons within the United States need to be reformed from the inside out, allowing prisoners a second chance at life and focusing much more on reformation instead of incarceration.
Prison privatization …show more content…
These parish prisons spend the bare minimum on their prisoners, maximizing profits instead. Instead of taxpayer’s spending thousands of dollars on inmates, such as the Louisiana State Penitentiary Angola, parish prison’s have valued each prisoner at $24 per head. Instead of a place of therapy and reformation, Louisiana’s prison system has become for profit “which must be supplied with a constant influx of human beings or else an $182 million industry will go bankrupt” (Brinkerhoff). If a states economic livelihood depends on the indefinite incarceration of it’s inhabitants, would it not do all that it can to keep them within prison walls? This concept alone displays a certain inhumanity and greed that preys on the poor and …show more content…
In 2007, 65% of white males were free while a 36% were imprisoned. In a disheartening comparison, only 12% of free black males made up the U.S population while more than 39% of black males were incarcerated (). Back in 1954, the number of imprisoned African Americans hovered somewhere new only 98,000 and by 2002 the number increased sharply to over 884,500. High crime rates among the black community have been linked to poverty, oppression and high pressure from local law authorities. Lawrence Bobo, author of Racialized Mass Incarceration, talks about the typical problems that stem from within black communities, “black involvement with criminal behavior is primarily traceable to differential black exposure to struc-tural conditions of extreme poverty, extreme racial segregation, changed law enforcement priorities, and the modern legacy of racial oppression”(Bobo). A combination of poverty, poor education and a justice system created to suppress certain inhabitants of society has created an economic machine that serves little purpose other than to withhold and
Prison privatization …show more content…
These parish prisons spend the bare minimum on their prisoners, maximizing profits instead. Instead of taxpayer’s spending thousands of dollars on inmates, such as the Louisiana State Penitentiary Angola, parish prison’s have valued each prisoner at $24 per head. Instead of a place of therapy and reformation, Louisiana’s prison system has become for profit “which must be supplied with a constant influx of human beings or else an $182 million industry will go bankrupt” (Brinkerhoff). If a states economic livelihood depends on the indefinite incarceration of it’s inhabitants, would it not do all that it can to keep them within prison walls? This concept alone displays a certain inhumanity and greed that preys on the poor and …show more content…
In 2007, 65% of white males were free while a 36% were imprisoned. In a disheartening comparison, only 12% of free black males made up the U.S population while more than 39% of black males were incarcerated (). Back in 1954, the number of imprisoned African Americans hovered somewhere new only 98,000 and by 2002 the number increased sharply to over 884,500. High crime rates among the black community have been linked to poverty, oppression and high pressure from local law authorities. Lawrence Bobo, author of Racialized Mass Incarceration, talks about the typical problems that stem from within black communities, “black involvement with criminal behavior is primarily traceable to differential black exposure to struc-tural conditions of extreme poverty, extreme racial segregation, changed law enforcement priorities, and the modern legacy of racial oppression”(Bobo). A combination of poverty, poor education and a justice system created to suppress certain inhabitants of society has created an economic machine that serves little purpose other than to withhold and