Mass Incarceration Essay Samples to Free Your Writing Potential

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In the aftermath of the Civil War, the black slaves were given their rights and much of the same rights as those given to the “white” population. Many believed that the former slaves would soon be graduating to the level of their former slaves. However, this was not the case; in fact, over the next two decades, the former slaves would be stripped of everything these had gained in the wake of the war. In fact, the declination of the rights of the black people was not only supported, these were institutionalized by the adoption of the “ ...

Alexander argues that black Americans who face mass incarceration through the war on drugs do not feel the gains of the civil rights movement. She equates this to the new Jim Crow era since the old Jim Crow era is long gone even if its principles live on. The old Jim Crow laws placed the African American in subordinate status, which manifests in modern day justice system (Alexander, 2010 p.21). She uses this analogy to analyze various issues facing African Americans and proves that racial segregation and class segmentation exists. This paper focuses on analyzing her argument and placing ...

Jonathan Simon writes this article with an aim of ending mass incarceration that was rampant during his time. Simon believes that mass incarceration leads to both torture and degradation of human dignity. However, modern correctionalism and the likes of rehabilitation curbs the problem associated with mass imprisonment, providing a more decent place for prisoners. Some institutions may fail to embrace human dignity, but the emergence of Red Cross in 1860 showed concern for humanity that everyone wanted. Prisoners from California are tortured, but only a few people know it, but the majority believes that prisoners suffer less than the ...

The novel The New Jim Crow by Michelle Alexander and Michelle McCool is another outstanding addition to the already rich literature on racism, specifically that which targets African Americans. From the years of slavery until today, it is safe to say that although there are observable changes regarding the issue, they were only minimal. Proof to this is the number of cases that have been committed against African Americans, with 1,134 deaths involving police officers in 2015. Despite America’s claims that racism doesn’t exist anymore, with the country’s president a black American himself, and Oprah ...

Human Rights for Prisoners

The prisons in developing regions such as Africa are viewed as the worst rehabilitation systems in the world due to overcrowding, violence, and a host of other issues. The institutions do not uphold human rights based on their deficient conditions and practices. However, many rehabilitation systems are under crisis all over the globe (Cavadino, Cavadino & Dignan, 2005). The number of inmates has risen to devastating levels in the developing nations and the United States. The countries need to develop secure prisons that uphold human rights to ensure that the justice system acts as an effective weapon in fighting crime ( ...

For one to understand Michelle Alexander’s ideologies on the barriers that hinder the success of African-Americans, an exploration of her arguments is necessary. Accordingly, the author insists on the existence of a “rigid social stratification” that seeks to instill the values of white supremacy in the United States through the mass incarceration of colored persons (Alexander talk, par.1). Now, while the physical separation of whites and other racial groups is evident in the country’s present-day prison systems, the method is merely the latest invention by the supremacist Caucasians. Initially, in the antebellum period, the institution of slavery ...

Touching upon the problem of improvement in race relations in the United States, we should say that it’s a rather controversial topic. Denying African Americans citizenship was deemed essential to the formation of the original union. Hundreds of years later, America is still not an egalitarian democracy. An extraordinary percentage of black men in the United States are legally barred from voting today, just as they have been throughout most of American history. They are also subject to legalized discrimination in employment, housing, education, public benefits, and jury service, just as their parents, grandparents, and great-grandparents once were. ...

African-American and the Criminal Justice System

The number of inmates in state prisons and federal jails has been increasing drastically for the last three decades. The vast mass immurement in United State of America has been attributed to several factors, which may include, change in morality, environment and policies, as reported by Roberts (2004). In light with this, the rate of incarceration for African Americans, especially men between the age of 20 and 29 has soared to astronomical levels, raising a critical concern in the state prison. Further, the gap between the whites and the Black inmates has also been widening, and the prison expansion involving ...