bjeselson98

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Conclusion to my argument

There is no excuse to overuse prisons, if money was allocated to communities of color for schools, community centers, rehabilitation centers, the streets, buildings recidivism rates would go down. I do not like how these authority figures do not take accountability and never get in trouble for it due to status and privilege. Policies such as the stand you grown law, three strikes policy and mandatory sentencing need to be properly investigated in order to decrease the amount of people in prions and create some type of equality for people who already so oppressed in our country “of the free”. I would like to see more body cams on police officers to notice the discrepancies between how they deal with white people and people of color. I think that it is important to start with the training of police officers to a more communal approach. Police officers are militarized to fear their community and are told their lives are always at risk. However, when you ask an officer how often they use their gun the chances are slim to none. Police feel scared and in turn use their weapon as a safety guard for protection. However, statistics prove that the real violent offenders if these same Americans who state they do it for self-defense. Discretion is the major factor which is embedded in all of us unconsciously. By educating people on the system, the oppression and the idea of criminal could turn public view to understand that so many lives are being taken by our government. Public will is not the only thing that needs to be changed. Money needs to be allocated toward communities who rely on the community’s wealth to support their community. Offenders need to properly be able to integrate them back into society and punishment needs to end after prison. The fact that human rights are taken after paying off punishment is not only inhumane but repulsive.

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#Changethesystem

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#Overcrowdingisystematicallyracist

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#freenonviolentoffenders

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We do not allow offenders to regenerate back into society!

Overcrowding and Overuse of Imprisonment in the United States” is a journal article that proves that mass incarceration is not the answer in order to decrease crime. This article addresses that even without imprisonment, the repercussions from prior felony holds people back from properly regenerating back into society. The opposing view suggests that crime is getting worse because of more crime however, even after serving for the crime individuals have committed, there rights are still infringed upon them. The article states, “ This explosive growth has reverberated far outside the prison walls: one out of every four Americans has a criminal record, which can impose tremendous obstacles to finding employment, securing loans, and obtaining housing” suggesting that crime is something that no one can move on from, labeling and branding people without consideration to their identity (Kennedy 3). This can contribute to the loss of hope in people of color or poor people. If a person lacks social mobility they are more likely to re-offend due to the lack of resources to excel in society. If you label and treat people as criminals, after a long extensive time they may start to believe and act in the role society gives them.

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Why would the government purposefully incarcerate such a high level of Americans?

The question is why would the government purposefully incarcerate such a high level of Americans? Financial gain is almost always the answer. Cops, private prisons, and cooperation’s benefit from punishing people in our society. For example, some prisoners were required to produce clothing for cooperation’s such as Victoria Secret while in private prisons. Another example is that cops are rewarded when they ticket or punish society, along with doctors who perform hysterectomies illegally in prisons.

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The Prison of the Gallows

The Prison and the Gallows is a book that takes history as a major factor into why incarceration rates are so high in 2020. The author states that “Americans incarceration rate of 714 per 100,000 is five to twelve times the rate of western European countries and japan” giving an unremarkable gap of incarceration for the US compared to other countries (Gottschalk 3). The opposing view of the debate suggests that an increase in crime is the reason for mass incarceration and that we are not addressing the issue properly. However, studies have shown that crime rates are not excelling at these rates and in fact people of color are getting targeted. People are forced to plead guilty for a better outcome, some people are stop and frisked, been falsely accused of crime, or cops plant drugs on them in order to get “justice” for the war on drugs. However, as previously stated John Ehrilichman admitted to lying about the amount of drug increase. This can not only affect a person’s life but how a person views themselves, if drug rates increased it was due to the fact that after telling a community they are criminal for so long, they are more susceptible to things such as drug use. Due to the fact that a person is not able to properly adapt into society after a conviction, any individual would be more likely to repeat offences as a way to gain financial income, feed their families, etc. When society deprives individuals from accessing resource and social mobility it forms an identity to that person and they are more likely to believe it even if it’s false. “On any given day 7 million people are under the supervision of the correctional system, constituting for 3.2 percent of the US adult prison population” the amount of people who are being monitored is extremely high and if the opposing argument suggests more people are committing crimes, the system sets up these individuals so that they cannot progress, leading to recidivism rates and no chance for an individual to win a case without a proper lawyer and money.

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Racial Bias

In the journal article, “Assessing Dangerous Serous amidst racial stereotypes: An analysis of role of racial bias in bond decisions and ideas for reform” discusses bond decisions and how racial bias plays a major role in the decisions with offenders. Judges have broad discretion when little time for each case is reviewed, causing more time for racial bias. The article states, “In some jurisdictions, judges can consider more than two dozen factors about the defendant’s alleged offense and criminal background, in addition to the screening tool, to arrive at their bond decisions… given the lack of review clarity in how judges weigh each factor, this judicial decision-making process lacks transparency, making it difficult to review…. truncated by the considerable time pressures and coupled with the judge’s broad discretion and minimal accountability, creates a powerful cocktail for racial bias” ultimately fueling jail and overcrowding because of the quick on the spot decisions of judges (Assefa 3). Judges have little information about the defendant, leading to unconscious bias about the individual. Even though it states an offender is innocent until proven guilty, jurisdictions rely on monetary bonds and other restrictive measures to condition or deny the release of the offender. This will lead to defendants who cannot afford bail to waiting behind bars for a long time before receiving a trial if the court sees the individual as a threat to society. In this study it was found that pretrial detention disproportionately affects people of color rather than white people due to the fact that people of color receive higher bonds due to racial bias. This contributes not only to the overuse in prisons, but to a system that is oppressing and specifically targeting a group of people based on unconscious bias structured within society. Historical context did not disappear and it is very prevalent on how we view, society, ourselves and others. The article also states, “For a minority of defendants, judge’s order no bail based on the severity of the crime and the risk the defendant poses to public safety… in some jurisdictions, there are statutory requirements for the denial of a bail bond for defendants charged with first or second-degree murder or other violent crimes... in these situations, the judge determines that “no set of conditions for release will guarantee” either the defendant’s appearance or will ensure the safety of the community” ensuring that even if a defendant is innocent, the court is already suggesting that they are a threat to society (Assefa 5).  In another study in 2012, it suggested that people of color and low income communities were heavily impacted due to the fact that they could not afford bail. It is alarming the amount of high levels of convictions judges make in quick moments. The last alarming statistic from this study is that, “defendant’s success at trial correlates with the amount of time the defendant is detained before release. Defendants detained for the entire pretrial period were 4.44 times more likely to be sentenced to jail or prison compared to defendants who were released at some point pending trial, even when other relevant statistical controls are considered” proving that the system deliberately ignores the 18th amendment and does not consider the individuals other factors when sentencing them to jail (Assefa 8).

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The 13th

           The Netflix documentary, “The 13th” is a well understood documentary that can be shown to a wide audience of different people, in order to explain why the US has such high levels of mass incarceration. This documentary serves as a valid source because it not only breaks down current policies and cases, but emphasizes how important historical context is in today's society. Money makes the world go round and since the beginning of time, humans have taken advantage of others in order to financially benefit. The documentary begins explaining slavery and the economic gain of the South before the Civil war. When 4 million slaves were set free, a high economic decline was arising creating problematic issues for southerners who relied on slaves for production. The 13th amendment was enacted in 1865, stating that “Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been dully convictive, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction, congress shall have the power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation” providing a loop whole for politicians to manipulate the freedoms of a specific group of people. (Duvernay and Moran, YouTube). Alternating the old language of what it means to be black to new language such as “Criminals”. Resulting in increasing arrests for petty and minor crimes such as loitering. The criminal justice system at the time would then in turn make these “criminals” do forced labor as a way to accommodate for their financial losses after the Civil War. I argue that this proves that slavery exists now in different forms of policies that harm and target a specific group of people for once again financial gain.

The “Birth of Nation'' was a film released on February 8th, 1915 that explained how blacks were viewed in society during this era. Blacks were dehumanized and seen as monsters. Representations of blacks in this film were animalistic whereas the K.K.K was represented as a glorifying union. The Ku Klux Klan would murder African Americans in mobs, justifying it by stating they are rapists and criminals. During Reconstruction and WWII, segregation laws such as Jim Crow were passed as a way to make African Americans second class citizens in society. It is important to understand that public opinion was altered based on what was being fed from government officials. As the civil rights movement was progressing during this time, more arrests were spiking, resulting in doubling in funding for the criminal justice system. In this era, the drug war was a tactic to control the social mobility of poor, low income communities.

John Ehrilichman, who was council and assistant to President Nixon stated, “The Nixon Campaign in 1968 and the Nixon White House after that, had two enemies: the antiwar left, and black people… you see what I’m saying? We knew we couldn’t make it illegal to either be against the war or black but by getting the public to associate the hippies with marijuana and blacks with heroin and then criminalizing both heavily we could disrupt those communities, we could arrest their leaders, raid their homes, break up there meetings and vilify them night after night in the evening news, did we know we were lying about the drugs? Of course we did'' proving racial intent in terms of policy but difficult to prove because of terminology. (Duvernay and Moran, YouTube). This small quote is a factor that contributes to institutionalized racism and a different form of slavery in the 21st century. Nixon is not the only president that centralized crime as a tactic to win the election, but presidents following him attempted to incorporate handling crime in America through harsher punishments and sentences

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The Publics Increasing Punitiveness and its Influence on Mass Incarceration in the United States”

In the journal article, “The Publics Increasing Punitiveness and its Influence on Mass Incarceration in the United States” written by Peter K. Enns explains how public opinion plays into policies. The United States now imprisons a higher proportion of its population than any country in the world due to crime in the United States being prioritized, increasing punitive public. The article states, “controlling for the crime rate, illegal drug use, inequality, and the party in power, since 1953 public opinion has been a fundamental determinant of changes in the incarceration rate…if the public’s punitiveness had stopped rising in the mid-1970s, the results imply that there would have been approximately 20% fewer incarcerations” (Enns 1). Enns analyzes the relationship between political, social and economic relationships to high incarceration rates through 400 survey questions to generate a measure of the public’s punitiveness from 1953 to 2012. The article states, “Increased citizen participation can actually set limits on state reliance on confinement.” correlating to the documentary because it addresses the way in which society shames criminals and convinces society to fear people, especially in low income and minority communities (Enns 5). Leading to an overestimation of public punitiveness, in order to create harsher policies that inflict punishment. This is how the political elite and government stays in control and in power, benefiting and being rewarded for punishing individuals. The political elite has major influence on the public's will and throughout 40 years of prison expansion the public has been distant to the high rates of incarceration due to stigma of what it means to be a criminal. Leading federal legislators to investigate, prosecute and incarcerate based on discretion of what crime is and how it should be handled, typically resulting in sentencing requirements. A clear example in the article is Treyvon Martin who was a 17 year old killed by Mark Zimmerman, a police officer who thought the boy was a “suspicious” person. Mark Zimmerman was let off due to injuries and Florida’s, “Stand your Ground Rule” which is a policy that justifies the killing of another if one’s life feels threatened. The officer got away with the murder and the court did not address Treyvon’s Martins right when he was threatened by someone with a weapon. The officer stated that he thought his cellphone was a weapon. In the media, pictures of Martin were depicted as a boy who used drugs, didn’t care about school, and more. Whereas the cop was depicted as a good standing member of society. I argue that a decision was already established before Martins trial due to stigma. The article notes that pure public opinion does not solely play a role in increased incarceration, but can dictate whether politicians take action to reduce incarceration rates, they need to be applied with the proper pressure.

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My Opinion on the Matter

The overuse of prisons is a major issue within the criminal justice system and incredibly prevalent in 2020. Before choosing my topic, I didn’t fully understand how historical ties influence today's structure in society. I argue that the opposing view that suggests the United States does not overuse prisons is structured to manipulate the ideals of society to justify the violence that the government has inflicted on poor and low income communities, in order to establish financial gain. Politicians and corporations that feed the public media that produce an idea about who a criminal is, makes the public susceptible to justify policies that hurt communities of color. The public in turn does not understand the consequences and repercussions of policies that they may enforce or agree with that can hurt the loved ones surrounded by them every day.

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The Debate

In American society, the criminal justice system has prioritized punishment historically and presently, as a way to deter people from committing crime. Research proves that mass incarceration in the United States is the highest among the world, in a place that ironically is known as “the land of the free”. There are two debates with this argument, one is that violent offenders are not being addressed well enough. Punishment for the offenders needs to be harder in order to deter future criminals. By inflicting more policies, longer sentencing, more police on the street, more prisons and by allocating a tremendous amount of money toward the criminal justice system, deterrence and decrease in incarceration will be the result. However, research shows that mass incarceration isn’t just about violent crime in America, but rather a development of institutionalized racism that is embedded in our policies to make sure that whites are benefiting more than blacks. The United States is home to 5 % of the population in the world but holds 25% of the world prisoners in the world (Duvernay and Moran, YouTube). The United States holds a high demand for punishment, resulting in violent crime not being the only factor that contributes to the high rates of incarceration. The system is designed so that an individual who commits a crime will ultimately be labeled as criminal for the rest of their life, no matter how small that crime may be or even if the individual did not commit the crime. The disproportionate amount of poor minorities and communities of color that are heavily impacted by these policies that politicians claim will better society, are in reality a major issue that is overwhelmingly neglected.

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How the media can influence the publics perception about what it means to be criminal

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The Public’s Increasing Punitiveness and Its Influence on Mass Incarceration in the United States

file:///home/chronos/u-bafa339d0957e3c2c9c15398fe9570c64ec405f3/MyFiles/Downloads/The%20publics%20increasing%20punitiveness.pdf

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The first death penalty sentence was George Stinney Jr at age 14 (Who was falsely accused for killing 2 little girls by the rail road tracks)

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California's: 3 Strike Law

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2.3 million people are locked up in the United States, accounting for 25% of the worlds prisoners.