...Wildeman (2014) explored the relationship between paternal and maternal incarceration and the prevalence of child homelessness. He found that paternal incarceration, not maternal incarceration, leads to child homelessness. The reason for this is because children whose mother are incarcerated are more likely to be put into foster care system, thus they are less likely to be homeless. On the other hand, paternal incarceration leads to a decline in governmental support, an increase in maternal stress and mental health issues, and an increase in financial instability in the family. Families lose one source of income when fathers are incarcerated, and African American men often have difficulties finding jobs after being released, thus increase the...
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...Michigan University Abstract Racial disparities in corrections measured by the black to white per capita incarceration rates vary from state to state, This paper will analyze the current trends and the impact incarceration has on communities of color and how criminal justice policy and practice plays a role in this. According to the Justice Department’s Bureau of Justice Statistics, out of a total population of 1,976,019 incarcerated in adult facilities, 1,239,946 or 63 percent are black or Latino, though these two groups constitute only 25 percent of the national population. Some of the greatest racial disparities in rates of incarceration happen in states in which minorities are massed in urban areas, which tend to have both higher rates of crime and greater law enforcement activity. This paper will also discuss how these incarcerations affect the offenders, public safety, criminal policies and procedures. Racial Disparities in Corrections There are many factors regarding the disproportional rates of incarceration in communities of color. Data generated by the U.S. Department of Justice predicts that if current trends continue, one out of every three black males born today will go to prison in his lifetime, as well as one of every six Latino males. The rates of incarceration for women overall are lower than for men, but similar racial/ethnic disparities still apply. Some law makers are looking at ways to develop...
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...most diverse and wealthiest countries in the world. Although the United States is wealthy, not all individuals have benefited from that wealth. Throughout society, African American communities have become marginalized, with areas of poverty, high crime rates, discrimination and few opportunities for advancement. These areas are often locations where racial and cultural minorities live. Racial disparities exist within the criminal justice system and have shown many problems of inequality between the white and black race. In addition to having inequality within the criminal justice system, the criminals also have impacted their family members in different ways due to being incarcerated. The media has misrepresented African Americans by emphasizing African Americans participating in crimes while ignoring crimes committed by whites. People in society are assuming that only black people commit crimes, which is unfair because the incidences of people committing crimes are about equal between the races. Racial disparity favors white people over black people in the criminal justice system. Therefore, society must reevaluate the way society portrays who commits crimes, and where they are committed. Throughout many decades of history, black people had been discriminated against and treated as second class citizens in American society, even though they participated equally in the workforce. Discrimination has happened from slavery until present times. For example, during the 17th century...
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...Running head: MASS INCARCERATION AND PRISONER RE-ENTRY MASS INCARCERATION AND PRISONER RE-ENTRY Mass Incarceration and Prisoner Re-Entry Student’s name: Tutor: Course: Date: Introduction The objective of a large number of the prisoner reentry programs is to ensure effective prisoner rehabilitation back to the community in order to reduce the likelihood of recidivism. While there have been increased efforts by the government organizations and other not-for-profit organization to promote effective reentry, the effectiveness of these programs are based on the efficiency of the strategies. Studies indicate that the rates of recidivism are greatly reduced where effective reentry programs are utilized (Baglivio, Wolff, Jackowski, & Greenwald,...
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...System or Not? According to the U.S. Justice Department, in 2003 about 10.4% of all African American men between the ages of 25-29 were incarcerated, as compared to 2.4% of Hispanic men and 1.2% on non-Hispanic White men. What is going on here? Why are black men in this age group so much more likely to be in jail than are people of white or Latino descent? Topics discussed in this paper include the most affected ethnical population in regards to criminal behavior and convictions, the difference between convictions and when/how individuals of different ethnic background are sentenced, and what the consequences may entitle based on individuals of alternate ethnical upbringing. African Americans make up 13% of the general U.S. population, yet make up 40% of all incarcerated men. While whites make up 67% of U.S. population, yet they also only make up 40% of incarcerated men. The United States has the highest incarceration rate in the world compared to other nations ("Sentencing Project," 2013). There is clearly an abundance of African American men incarcerated in the justice system as compared to men of other ethnicity (Hartney & Vuong, 2009). “If current trends continue, one in every three African American males born today can expect to go to prison in his lifetime…….,compared to one in every seventeen white males” ("Sentencing Project," 2013, p. 1) . As stated by Kirby, males of African American descent continue to be arrested, sentenced, and imprisoned at higher rates when compared...
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...Minority Inmates in American Prisons Noreen Harman ENG122: English Composition II Instructor January Pearson July 7, 2014 There is a disparate rate of minorities in the American prison system currently. I will present evidence from scholarly resources proving that the reason why the minority population is so high is due to racial profiling. The judicial system imposes stricter and longer prison terms on minorities because of their culture. Blacks are about eight times more likely to go to prison than whites, which dwarfs black-white disparities in, for example, unemployment rates (2-to -1 disparity), infant mortality (2-to -1 disparity), and out of wedlock births (3-to-1 disparity). L.J. Geo (2010). African American and Hispanic offenders were more likely than whites to be sentenced to prison, especially if they were male, young and unemployed, S. Spohn (2000). Even though there may be a high rate of minority crimes being committed, I believe the reason for having so many minorities in prison is due to the current judicial system stereo typing. In the article Rethinking Drug Courts: Restorative Justice as a Response to Racial Injustice, it talks about the rate of drug crimes committed by minority and longer sentences imposed to blacks and Hispanics. Drug court offers offenders the opportunity to not do time in prison and get court supervised treatment instead. This is beneficial to the families of minorities so they can keep working and providing...
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...Vulnerable Population and Self-Awareness Paper Nancy Estrada NURS440 April 7, 2014 Mr. Steadman McPeters, MSN, CPNP-AC, RN * * * Vulnerable Population and Self-Awareness Paper I would like to introduce Yvonne Johnson. She is a 35-year-old African American woman raising15-year-old son Randall by herself. The father helps occasionally with child support, but it is Ms. Johnson who has primary custody of her son. Ms. Johnson works as an administrative assistant, however, she has a degree in marketing. Her job is stressful and although she has asked her boss to hire someone to help her, he has not done so. Ms. Johnson is unhappy with her job as she is clearly overqualified. She has not been able to find a job in marketing and does not want to move out of the area to look for employment because she’s lived there all her life and her family is there. Ms. Johnson’s family situation is not an uncommon one. According to Jacobson (2003), the Center for Disease Control and Prevention stated in a report that came in out in August, 2012, that approximately 67% of the African American homes in America children are being raised by the mothers. It is also suggested in "Incarceration Rate For African-Americans Now Six Times The National Average" (2013), that there are more African American males who are either uneducated or spend time in jail and therefore, this leaves the women little selection for a marriage partner. According to Culvert (2007) this same...
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...Abstract The purpose of this research is to provide a glimpse into the rate of women's incarceration in the United States and the contributing factors leading to an increase in such incarcerations. Statistical review alludes to an increase in the rate of incarceration among women. The aim of this research was to establish the connection between diverse behaviors and imprisonment rates among women. Findings indicate that women’s rearrests, may be the contributing factor for the recorded increase in the growth of women in prison in the United States. One can thus deduce that the incarceration policies and environments in female prisons are disconnected with the social discourse, thereby ill-equipping incarcerated women with proper skills to reintegrate...
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...Prospective Claims: Michelle Alexander discusses how mass incarceration has ruined and dismantled many lives of young African Americans. The problem she discusses so passionately in her book is a relevant problem in our society today. Ever since Ronald Reagan’s presidency and forward, campaigns have been targeting crime and especially rug related crimes. While it is clear that many of these young African Americans are going to prison due to drug related crimes, stopping the war on drugs altogether is not the solution. Although stopping the drug war may seem efficient for stopping the incarceration of young blacks in the present, it does not guarantee that these same people will not commit other crimes. The cost for stopping the drug war is allowing drug usage and distribution to run rampant which can cause the society and the neighborhoods around the areas to become unsafe. Alexander discusses how there is no way around this issue and dismantling the system of mass incarceration is the only resolution; however if these poor neighborhoods were funded with government money, drug abuse can potentially become lower or even be stopped. Alexander is also discussing how a handful of reforms cannot be a solution to the problem. She argues that all the financial grants that are given to police departments for drug arrests and racial profiling should be halted. She believes that by halting the funding and supplies of mass incarceration are only scratching the surface of social reform. She...
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...Ohio State University law professor and civil rights activist Michelle Alexander, author of "The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness," reports there are more African American men in prison and jail, or on probation and parole, than were slaves before the start of the Civil War. Statistics reported in 2006, by the U.S .Department of Justice, Bureau of Statistics support this claim, which show that Blacks made up 41 percent of the nation’s 2 million prison and jail inmates, while Non-Hispanic whites made up 37 percent and Hispanics made up 19 percent. The disproportionate ratio of blacks to whites who are incarcerated is especially great in Iowa, Vermont, New Jersey, Connecticut, Wisconsin, North Dakota, and South Dakota – greater than 10-to-1 (USJB, 2006). Why this structural inequality towards African Americans is happening, why it matters, and suggestions to rectify this, are issues that are discussed in this paper. Why is this happening? Since 1970, the U.S. has experienced a large and rapid increase in the rate at which people, regardless of race, are housed in federal and state correctional facilities (Snyder, 2011). This rapid growth in the prison population has been attributed in a large part to the rate at which individuals are incarcerated for drug offenses, especially minorities (Snyder, 2011). Between1995 and 2003, the number of people in state and federal prisons incarcerated for drug offenses increased by 21 percent, from 280,182 to 337...
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...Unfair Incarceration: Minorities’ Plight in the U.S. Judicial System DeVry University Cultural Diversity in the Professions SOCS 350N Spring 2013 Abstract The United States is well known as the Land of Opportunity, but if you’re a minority that opportunity maybe a greater chance of being incarcerated in the state and federal penal systems. Civil rights battles have raged for the greater part of the last century in this country. With milestone victories in the early and mid 1960’s equality under the law seemed to be a foregone conclusion. There are numerous laws, policies and even a Constitutional Amendment that address the matter that race should never be a factor. With this is all in play and in mind, you would think that statistics of the U.S. penal systems racial analysis has to be completed with a huge margin in error because it is not near equality. In a cursory search of this topic one can find a deluge of graphs, tables, and statistical analysis. The one thing you cannot find is a quantitative or qualitative consensus of why this has occurred or why it is still occurring. A preponderance of the evidence is anecdotal and offers suggestions of policies and attitudes that have led to this epidemic in contemporary American society. In this review, an endeavor to gather the gist of the issue and attempt to answer why or how this came about and the numerical extent. Followed by the consequences to the affected groups and the whole of society. Finally...
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...2012 © 2012 Nichole Griffith Table of Contents Research Proposal ............................................................................................................................1 Annotated Bibliography ...................................................................................................................2 Outline..............................................................................................................................................6 Introduction ......................................................................................................................................7 Research ..........................................................................................................................................8 Conclusion ....................................................................................................................................29 Bibliography .................................................................................................................................31 Research Proposal The goal of my research is to expose the racism in the criminal justice system that is so hidden. I want to show how racism contributes to the huge number of incarcerated African Americans. The criminal justice system creates and perpetuates racial hierarchy in the United States, and has done so throughout history. African Americans are criminalized and targeted because of their skin color...
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...Proposal for Structured Inequality of African American Men Sylvia Roberson DeVry University Proposal for Structured Inequality of Incarcerated African American Men For the proposal project, I chose scenario number three. This scenario consists of the large discrepancy of African American men incarcerated in the United States compared to Hispanic and White American men. According to the scenario “in 2003 about 10.4 of African American men between the ages of 25 to 29 were incarcerated, as compared to 2.4% of Hispanic men and 1.2% of non-Hispanic White men” (DeVry, 2014, p. 3). There is an epidemic in today’s society that negatively impact African American men in the justice system. Equality is a right that every United States (U.S.) citizen should be afforded whether in the work system or the justice system. With African American men being treated unfairly, it can directly affect my friends, neighbors, or co-workers. According to Fernando (2003), “Cultural diversity is the term given to a range of societies or peoples, with different origins, religions and traditions, all living in a specific region” (p. 1). The U. S. have a large population of different cultures and they have form a community which they live in and practice their cultural beliefs. As for African American, this group has communities that are populated with their group as well. This topic is important to cultural diversity because this is a particular group that are being singled out which is related...
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...RACE AND THE CRIMINAL JUSTICE SYSTEM 2 “According to the U.S. Justice Department, in 2003 about 10.4% of all African American men between the ages of 25 to 29 were incarcerated, as compared to 2.4% of Hispanic men and 1.2% of non-Hispanic White men” (DeVry, 2015). This topic is critical to the study of cultural diversity because of the racial disparity among the young African American males in the criminal justice system and the lasting effects of incarceration. This research paper will unveil the truth about why African men in this age group are much more likely to be sent to prison than are people of White or Latino descent. . African American men are often charged and prosecuted more aggressively than White or Hispanic men. This paper will also reveal the adverse mental and physical health endured by black males during incarceration and upon release. Recent studies indicate that inadequate education and low socioeconomic status has a direct correlation between black males and crime. As the United States becomes an increasingly diverse nation, many studies confirm racial inequalities exist amongst judges, lawyers and legislation. This creates the very serious concern of racial profiling. While racial profiling is illegal, studies prove that black males are more likely to be stopped and searched. New York State is only one of two states that automatically processes, prosecutes and incarcerates 16 and 17 year-olds as adults. Legislation...
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...paper, I will argue that offering treatment to addicts is better than incarceration because it is cost efficient, recidivism rates will decrease, and it is a long-term solution. While also looking into race and how it affects sentencing. Treatment costs tend to be far less than incarceration and the recidivism rates decline if addicts are offered treatment earlier. These factors have been proven to increase the rates of incarceration and substance use. The recidivism rate is also higher among inmates with substance use issues. Treatment helps prepare addicts to return to society and a chance to choose something different. It seems that the system sets addicts up for failure when they turn around and send them back into the situation that...
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