The Incarceration Of The United States - 1519 Words

in recent decades, violent crimes in the United States of America have been on a steady decline, however, the number of people in the United States under some form of correctional control is reaching towering heights and reaching record proportions. In the last thirty years, the incarceration rates in the United States has skyrocketed; the numbers roughly quadrupled from around five hundred thousand to more than 2 million people. (NAACP)In a speech on criminal justice at Columbia University, Hillary Clinton notes that, â€Å"It’s a stark fact that the United States has less than five percent of the world’s population, yet we have almost 25 percent of the world’s total prison population. The numbers today are much higher than they were 30, 40 years ago, despite the fact that crime is at historic lows.† (washington post) How could this be? Are Americans more prone to criminal activity than the rest of the world? How could they be more prone to criminal ac tivity if crime rates have been dropping? Numbers like that should be cause for concern, because if crime rates are dropping then it is only logical for one to expect the number of incarceration to go down as well; unfortunately, the opposite is true. Shockingly, there seem to be a few people who actually profits from keeping people in jails. The practice of mass incarceration who most see as a major problem in the United States of America is actually beneficial to some. The prison system in the United States who was create toShow MoreRelatedThe Incarceration Of The United States980 Words   |  4 PagesHave you ever questioned about the justice in the United States? Stevenson states that, â€Å"Today we have the highest rate of incarceration in the world. The prison population has increased from 300,000 people in the early 1970s to 2.3 million people today† (15). United States is a modern country that doesn’t serve justice to her citizen? 2.3 million prisoners are j ust embarrassing the whole country. You might want to know how bad the justice system is and how the heck cause 2.3 million prisoners toRead MoreIncarceration Of The United States Essay2335 Words   |  10 PagesEven though the United States makes up just 5% of the world’s population, it houses 25% of the world’s prison population† (Walmsley, 2009). The United States prides itself in being a worldwide leader in just about every category; however, being the world leader in incarceration rights might not be something the United States would be proud about. Incarceration rates in the United States have grown at alarming rates in the past forty years specifically and it has resulted in major overcrowding issuesRead MoreThe Incarceration Of The United States979 Words   |  4 PagesHave you ever question about the justice in the United States? Stevenson states that, â€Å"Today we have the highest rate of incarceration in the world. The prison population has increa sed from 300,000 people in the early 1970s to 2.3 million people today† (15). Is United States is a modern country that doesn’t serve justice to her citizen? 2.3 million of prisoners are just embarrassing the whole country. You might want to know how bad the justice system is and how the heck cause 2.3 million prisonersRead MoreIncarceration Of The United States1113 Words   |  5 Pages The United States of America has more people incarcerated than any other country on earth, a whopping 2,220,300 adults are currently locked behind bars. We have 500,000 more citizens locked up than China, a country 5 times our population run by an authoritarian government. From 1990 - 2000 the prison population increased by 1,000,000. The main reason for incarceration as a punishment in this country is rehabilitation, or so we have been told. In recent years an industry has developed that revolvesRead MoreThe Incarceration Of The United States1044 Words   |  5 PagesOverview The United States has the highest prison population in the world, with over two million incarcerated (World Prison Brief, 2016), of whom many are juveniles. It is well documented that youths who enter this system are more likely to suffer a host of negative health and lifestyle outcomes, such as alcohol/drug abuse, high school dropout, and mental health problems. Such phenomena occur in stark contrast with the aims of the US juvenile justice system, which supposedly intends to help offendingRead MoreIncarceration Of The United States1957 Words   |  8 Pages Incarceration has been a pending issue amongst western civilization’s history for some time and today continues to raise a wide range of important questions. Incarceration of individuals have become a tremendous tax payer concern along with the incarceration of the drug war, convictions of street gangs, and the rest of the individuals who have broken the law and harmed other innocent individuals. However, the question is always a concern of men incarceration and hardly addressed of women beingRead MoreIncarceration Of The United States3014 Words   |  13 PagesThe United States of America is phrased by many, as being â€Å"the land of the free.† Yet, the Unites States currently has the highest per capita prison population than any other country. The United States makes up only 5% of the world’s population and of that 5%, 25% of our overall nation’s population is currently incarcerated. A few factors that attribute to our high rates of incarceration incl ude, sentencing laws: such as mandatory- minimum sentencing, lack of initial deterrence from crime, the warRead MoreThe Incarceration Of The United States2529 Words   |  11 PagesSince 2002, The United States has had the highest incarceration rate in the world, and many of those imprisoned within the U.S. will be released and rearrested within three years (Langan Levin, 2002). Unfortunately, research has been mixed shown that the time spent in prison does not successfully rehabilitate most inmates, and the majority of criminals return to a life of crime almost immediately. Most experts believe that many prisoners will learn more and better ways to commit crimes while theyRead MoreIncarceration Of The United States1745 Words   |  7 PagesThere are over two million people in the United States behind bars. Incarceration in the US is one of the main forms of punishment that leads nothing after for people when getting out. Every state, city, country, all have laws we citizens obey and go by to do best for our country, but what happens someone violates the law? According to Google’s definition of a felony, it says that felony means, â€Å"a crime, typically one involving violence, regarded as more serious than a misdemeanor, and usually punishableRead MoreIncarceration Of The United States1774 Words   |  8 PagesCurrently the United States holds the leading position for having the largest prison population in the world. Considering this, the cost of re-incarcerating offenders after their release remains notably high to U.S Americans and our society. Recidivism is known as the reimprisonment of an individual that is released from prison but then later returns for being convicted of a new crime. However, there is essential data that proves the drastic reduction in recidivism through academic and vocational