Societies have numerous tools and resources at their disposal in order to improve public safety, control crime, and reduce recidivism rates. These tools range from government infrastructure such as better paved roads to well-designed public places. Social services including good schools, community hospitals and health clinics, or workforce development programs allows a community to have lower crime rates because the community functions through methods of prosperity. Programs such as criminal justice interventions including police initiatives, probation, parole, or prison are set in place to prevent future crimes from taking place. Over the past four decades, the United States has become increasingly reliant on incarceration as the major “tool” for reducing crime and increasing public safety. As a result of this action, the prison population has skyrocketed, rising a staggering 500% with the …show more content…
As budgets for the penal system have increased, there are fewer resources and less budget for education, economic development, and public services, even including those that focus on crime prevention such as state and local policing, or deterrence. However, has this increased focus on incarceration made our society safer? The unwanted social and financial consequences of incarceration are due to long prison terms, “truth-in sentencing” laws, “three strikes” laws, and mandatory minimum sentences. These types of sentencing laws perpetuate but fail to identify the problems of the inconsistencies found in the current criminal justice system. As a result, race and gender inequality issues predominately occur within the framework. Almost 70% of all convicts subject to mandatory minimum sentences are African American or Latino, and 90% of them are men