Essay Sample on Inequality and Economic Shortcomings Arising Out of America's Mass

The incarceration problem is not new to anyone but should be taken more seriously. America has the highest incarceration rate globally and seems like there's no end in sight. “The United States holds five percent of the world's population and houses nearly 25 percent of the world's prisoners”. (Pfaff, John F. "A Plague of Prisons: The Epidemiology of Mass deprivation of liberty and freedom does nothing but harm to our society as well as the economy.

While I understand the reasoning behind higher crime equals more prisons being built, in the same way that if a large number of people get sick then the logical response would be to build more hospitals (as stated by Loury, Glenn Cartman, and Bruce Western in "The challenge of mass incarceration in America.") . However this is not the case in this day in age in which race and social class have now become a foundation for punishment. “Incarceration rate has been demonstrated to be disconnected from the crime rate” (Schmidt, Bethany E. "The Punishment Imperative: The Rise and Failure of Mass Incarceration in America.) for some time and prisons have not met their goal in deterring and rehabilitating offenders. Currently there is %5.2 million disenfranchised Americans unable to vote even after serving their sentence. Which forms an oppressed second class Incarceration in America.”)

This is important and troubling information because this that is already filled with systematically oppressed minorities. For example, African Americans are the highest incarcerated ethnicity of any other and this is because of our old white nationalist society that has embedded racial inequality in America for 400 years. This means that most of the population unable to vote and being incarcerated would be those that already have the weakest social and economic opportunities.

This is as a result of the criminal justice system “ not being a system at all, just a chaotic swirl of local county, state and federal actors with different constituencies and incentives.” (Pfaff, John F. "A Plague of Prisons: The Epidemiology of Mass Incarceration in America.”) Basically the justice system is just a game when it should not be. These are people's lives at stake and whether or not they get their lives and families' lives torn apart should not be determined by who has more money or better lawyers, it should be based on empirical fact. And even if you don't care about anyone but yourself this high imprisonment rate has tax payers paying 260 billion a year. While there is no easy path out of this systematic failure we have created for ourselves, I believe that we should never stop trying to build a better future for america.

So some ways to try and fix the mass incarceration rate in America would be to eliminate poor areas, improve education, provide jobs, and make sure every American is given the opportunities and freedoms that allow them to fulfill their responsibilities. But in a simpler, easier sense lawmakers need to really reflect and work on decriminalizing certain activities and reclassify certain low level felonies that would not affect public safety. As well as expanding use of alternatives to prison for nonviolent crimes. We should divert people with mental illness or substance abuse issues away from the criminal justice system and rather put them in treatment programs.

In conclusion the misuse as well as overuse of the prison system is disgusting and causes nothing but pain. The inequality it causes is invisible, cumulative and intergenerational and needs to stop. Society needs to take a long, good look at itself and fix what they've done to their brothers and sisters.