Mass Incarceration Analysis

Decent Essays
In the present day world there is a major incarceration problem. Many people might think that mass incarceration does not apply to them or really is not a big issue, however, those individuals would be wrong. Even though most people are not going to be locked up in this mass incarceration era it still has a negative effect on the public. Taxpayers are the people who pay for all the people incarcerated and contrary to popular belief this can be a costly bill to cover. I understand that words are not always accurate or convincing but numbers can be persuasive and do not lie. One of the most important aspects of incarceration is the cost. According to the Federal Register, in 2011 the cost to incarcerate one inmate in federal prison was about …show more content…
These are average amounts meaning that some prisoners might cost more to house than others. Even so, this is an outrageous amount of money and with the amount of people we have incarcerated the amount of money this country spends on the incarceration of these individuals is crazy. According to the Bureau of Justice statistics, in 2014 there were about 2.2 million people incarcerated. In addition, the adult correction systems supervised almost 7 million people (Glaze, Kaeble, & Minton, 2015). There are 2.2 million people in prisons that tax payers have to pay for. Also in addition to the people in prison there are also almost 5 million more people on parole probation. These numbers are insane but not to mention the amount of money all those people cost taxpayers. Just based on the previously given figures from 2011, lets make a low estimate and say the average cost per inmate was 26 thousand dollars …show more content…
According to the BJS (Bureau of Justice Statistics), women comprise about 7% of the total prison population. This seems a bit Ridiculous, females comprise roughly 50% of the population however only account for 7% of the prison population. Surely the men aren’t committing 93% of the crimes. Something seems to be off with the system if only 7% of incarcerated individuals are female. However it could just be because men are committing 93% of the crimes. That possibility seems rather unlikely though. Figure 3 shows this rather pressing

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