Essay On Prison Disparities

Disparities within prisons in the United States are seen among all levels. As a whole the United States alone makes up 25% of the worlds incarceration rates, 1 in 100 adults are incarcerated, these statistics create concern when researching the prison system. There are many disparities such as race, class, and gender and each of these disparities have numerous causes. The disparity within the prisons do not stop inside those walls, the disparity effects the inmate’s families and follows the ex-convicts into their post-prison life preventing them from making a smooth transition back into normal society. Prisons have levels of incarceration. At the lowest level, for low level offenses is the minimal level security. Succeeding the minimum level is the medium security prisons which have the largest quantity of prisoners. The third level of security is maximum security. Maximum security limits inmates to minimal amount of social interaction. The highest level of …show more content…
There are also systemic disparities that effect who will end up incarcerated. Age, race, and educational disparities are disadvantages to many minorities, causing them to be the prime victims of incarceration (Western, 2007). Studies show that more men then women are incarcerated and even more so black men than white. “The first wave of research on the consequences of mass imprisonment for social inequality focused almost exclusively on adult men” the second wave focused on the spill over effects on the families and communities (Lee, McCormick, Hicken, Wildemen,2015). This problem of mass incarceration really began to boom between 1970 and 2000, with state and federal prisons occupied by 1.3 million men by the end of the century (Pettit & Western, 2004). By the 1980s politicians were pushing for a “punitive law-and-order” approach with many sates establishing mandatory minimum sentencing and the three-strike law (Beito,