Crime and prison population
The answer to this question is astounding: the U.S. incarcerates 25% of the world's prison population with only 7% of the world's population. This is a disturbing anamoly in the history of the world. Never before has a country been able to incarcerate so many people at such a high rate, two million and 1 in 127 respectively. These large numbers are incredibly difficult to think about in meaningful terms. But if you can imagine the population of Los Angeles in 1950; and if you then put all of those people in some type of cage, you are close to contemplating the immensity of the U.S. incarcerated population. The incredibly important and disturbing factor is how fast this occurred. Today's level of roughly two million was achieved mainly since 1980 when there was about 500,000 people incarcerated.California illustrates how this growth has occurred over a relatively short period of time. Since 1977, the California Department of Correction's (CDC's) prison population has increased from 17,338 to 160,655, over a seven hundred percent increse. If you add the people in California's federal prisons and county jails, California leads the country with around 258,000 people in prison or jail. When we color these numbers, the proble
m becomes clearer: of the prison population, African Americans constitute almost one third while they represent 6% of the population. has an abnormal incarceration process, and not an abnormal crime problem. Zimring argues: Expanding punishment resources. Latinos, proportionally, have suffered the brunt of California's prison boom. " So while increased incarceration is not a simple formula for decreased crime, what about the conclusion that the United States is a crime ridden country, and that we therefore are bound to have high incarceration rates, albeit with some problems? The problem with this assumption is that United States is not the crime ridden country people presume it to be or our prison population suggests. A total reversal appears likely if you look at the juvenile halls in Los Angeles County, where 1,100 of the 1,800 youth inside are Latino. In others words, the drug war came. So if incarceration does reduce crime, "at a certain level a point of diminishing returns is reached. What this means is that as violent crime was rising, the percentage of those serving time for violent crime was decreasing.
Common topics in this essay:
Crime Zimmring,
George Bush,
Angeles County,
American Californians,
Los Angeles,
,
Correction's CDC's,
African Americans,
violent crime,
prison population,
incarceration rates,
crime rates,
non-violent crime,
california imprisoned violent,
violent crime violent,
lower decreases,
crime violent,
decreases crime,
crime ridden country,
rates prison,
rate 1,
imprisoned violent crime,
united crime ridden,
|
Acceptance Essays
