Nell Bernstein's All Alone In The World: Children Of The Incarcerated

In reading and dissecting Nell Bernstein’s All alone in the world: Children of the incarcerated, many social issues and issues within current policies involving the incarcerated population were discussed. It is no secret that for some time now, the United States’ criminal justice system has been majorly flawed in more ways than one. Bernstein focuses and creates conversation around several difficulties that children of the incarcerated population experience. The central social problem presented in Bernstein’s novel is that children are being separated from their parents at crucial developmental stages in their lives. Many of the children experienced their parent(s) being incarcerated at very young ages; ages where having a parent to interact …show more content…
Bernstein (2005) indicated that African Americans make up about 14 percent of the country's illegal drug users and use of drugs at rates similar to white Americans, but make up 74% of the nation’s total drug prisoners. The Osborne Association reports that 1 in 9 or 11.4% of African American children have an incarcerated parent in the United States; compared to 1 in 28 (3.5%) Hispanic children, or 1 in 57 (1.8%) White children. Interestingly enough, a press release prepared by Wagner and Rabuy (2016) reports that when it comes to the racial and ethnic disparities in prisons and jails, that the White population is underrepresented, while the African American population are overrepresented. Could this be due to the large number Blacks behind bars, and the fact that they are more likely to become incarcerated than other races? I should think so. An enormous amount of the cases dealing with incarcerated parents are typically drug related, and are composed of people who are in the lower socioeconomic status within the population. Wagner and Rabuy (2016) find that 1 in 5 incarcerated persons are jailed due to a drug offense. Harmless drug misdemeanors are an essential representative of the federal prison system today (Wagner and Rabuy, 2016). Other reasons, besides drugs, parents becoming incarcerated stem from homelessness, mental health issues, and physical …show more content…
The sentencing the inmates are facing are often extreme when taken into account what they are being convicted for. Other times, as referenced in the book, people who are innocent and may not have been directly involved in a crime, but are guilty by association is also a huge issue. There was a case where a woman whose significant other sold drugs and she initially was unaware of his situation. Once she found out, she parted ways with him, but the authorities had a warrant for her arrest and finally caught up with her. Even when charged and taken to court, with her ex-boyfriend testifying that she was innocent and had no knowledge of the drug crimes, and lacking evidence against her, she was still convicted. Additional cases in the novel explained that drug offenses often lead to life sentences, no matter how minimal the offense may have been. Bernstein (2005) stated that 1 in 11 prisoners (state and federal) are doing life sentences; 1 in 4 prisoners are serving life sentences of twenty plus years. As for issues surrounding reentry into society, a vast majority of the persons who once were incarcerated face more difficulties than someone in the general population. Looking for jobs is tough, due to many people not hiring people who have been convicted of crimes, or who are still on parole once they