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ISN’T AMERICA THE “BEST”?

By many accounts, the United States is considered to be the most advanced nation and one of the most civilized societies in the western world. We are among the best in terms of our educational and legal systems; however, according to Wendy Sawyer, Research Director of the Prison Policy Initiative, there are over 2.3 million people locked away in jails and prisons nationwide… 

To put this number in perspective, the United States incarcerates more people than any other country on the face of the planet — even China, who has a population of over one billion people! (This shows that we incarcerate at a highly disproportionate rate compared to other countries.) 

Naturally, we associate the word “prison” with “crime” and “corruption,” but if the U.S. is so advanced, why are so many of our people incarcerated? 

As this article explores, this question illuminates the socioeconomic issues present in our prison system and how mass incarceration aggravates these inherent flaws. 

My goal in writing this article is to educate and to leave you with a better understanding of the American Prison System (APS). To better understand mass incarceration in the United States, I will the information of article into 3 different sections: “what?”, “why?”, and “who?”. We will be defining:

WHAT mass incarceration is;

WHY mass incarceration exists/why it’s a relevant socioeconomic issue;

and WHO mass incarceration affects/who funds the prison system

WHAT IS MASS INCARCERATION?

According to renowned sociologist and professor at Cornell University, Christopher Wildeman, mass incarceration has been defined as “a social phenomenon wherein extreme rates of imprisonment are specifically concentrated among minority groups.”

Professor Wildeman has also stated that the American prison system, or the APS, is a $74 billion industry funded majorly by the government who gets the money from American taxpayers… you and me. The APS is a massive industry that not only generates revenue for the prison system, but for the American economy as a whole. With this being said, there are major economic incentives to increase the prison population via mass incarceration: According to a 2018 article entitled: “The American Prison System: It’s Just Business,” published by Fordham University’s Corporate and Financial Journal, the number of bodies within U.S. prisons serve as a source of revenue for the private sector with each inmate garnering $6,000 to $14,000 in income. 

Mass incarceration is a social phenomenon with extreme rates of imprisonment fueled by economic incentives. Now that we’ve covered what mass incarceration is, we’ll discuss how it works and why it’s an issue.

WHY: THE PRISON BOOM OF THE 1980s

In the past (like, 40 years ago), mass incarceration didn’t exist. It has come into existence in the past 30-35 years and has only worsened up until now. To understand why mass incarceration continues to exist, we have to understand how the prison industry is owned and how that ownership has been transferred over time. 

Before mass incarceration became an issue in the U.S., prisons were not privately owned — they were owned by the government: the public sector. This means that government resources were used to fund prison institutions, which was only possible because prison populations were small enough to not burden government funds.

In the 1980s, however, there was a rapid expansion of the prison population due to the War on Drugs campaign (launched by the Reagan administration) coupled with new legislation that mandated for minimum sentences to be served by criminal offenders, the goal being to reduce the illegal drug trade within the U.S. This was known as the prison boom of the 80s. 

Because so many people were now targeted for imprisonment, there was a subsequent increase of the prison population which led to an overwhelming burden on the public sector to house the influx of people. This burden led to the emergence of for-profit (this term is important because it explains why mass incarceration is economically viable), private prisons to fill the gaps. As prisons were privatized (meaning they were now controlled by private businesses), there were economic incentives to incarcerate people in mass. How does this work? Private prisons get their funding from government contracts that are based on the number of inmates and the average length of time served in a prison. As you can see, these contracts are incentives for prisons to house as many people as they can and to detain them for as long as possible in order to maximize the amount of government funding received.

As we’ve seen, the issue of mass incarceration is a very recent and very relevant social issue, and the transfer of ownership from the public to private sector has economically incentivized mass incarceration. Now we’re going to examine who the system targets (as proven by empirical data), and who pays for the funds that private prisons receive.

WHO: MINORITY GROUPS are among the most significantly affected and targeted populations to be funneled into the prison system.

There is a stark over-representation of minority groups within the APS, many being charged and jailed for minor/non-violent crimes. According to a Feb. 2020 article written by professor Christopher Wildeman, published at Oxford Bibliographies.com, the prison boom of the 80s resulted in comparatively high rates of imprisonment concentrated among African American males living in disadvantaged communities. 

What’s important to remember is that the prison boom affected all racial groups, as members from all racial groups were incarcerated at higher rates. However, following the prison boom, minority groups, especially those already considered economically disadvantaged, were incarcerated at higher rates compared to their white counterparts.

Additionally, as published by the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), the “Criminal Justice Fact Sheet” details the racial disparities that exist specifically among the African American and Hispanic communities compared to their white counterparts; for example, although they make up only 32% of the U.S. population, combined, they accounted for 56% of the prison population in 2015. Moreover, the recent opioid epidemic further exemplifies the racial disparities within the APS: 17 million whites reported having used an illicit drug within the last month compared to 4 million blacks, yet blacks are disproportionately arrested and convicted for the same crime. 

One reason for the alarming racial disparities within the APS is due to the criminalization of racial minorities which makes them more vulnerable to being incarcerated at unequal rates. How are minority groups are portrayed in the media? How do you tend to perceive minority groups, based on your implicit biases?

CONCLUSION

A brief recap: mass incarceration is a socioeconomic issue that carries dangerous implications for minority groups within America. The privatization of prisons during the 1980s made mass incarceration an economically viable solution to the rapid expansion of the prison population, leading to the creation of a behemoth $74 billion industry funded by U.S. taxpayers… you and me. 

SOURCES USED

“Criminal Justice Fact Sheet.” NAACP, www.naacp.org/criminal-justice-fact-sheet/.

Gotsch, Kara, et al. “Capitalizing on Mass Incarceration: U.S. Growth in Private Prisons.” The 

Sentencing Project, 2 Aug. 2018, www.sentencingproject.org/publications/capitalizing-on-mass-incarceration-u-s-growth-in-private-prisons/.

Sawyer, Wendy. “Youth Confinement: The Whole Pie 2019.” Youth Confinement: The Whole Pie 

2019 | Prison Policy Initiative, 19 Dec. 2019, www.prisonpolicy.org/reports/youth2019.html.

Wildeman, Christopher. “Mass Incarceration.” Mass Incarceration - Criminology - Oxford 

Bibliographies, 20 Feb. 2020, www.oxfordbibliographies.com/view/document/obo-9780195396607/obo-9780195396607-0033.xml.

Wright, L.B. “The American Prison System: It's Just Business.” Fordham Journal of Corporate 

Last week I signed up for Bumble BFF in hopes of expanding my circle of friends. Although I have a small group of wonderful friends who live near me and an extended group of friends with whom I grew up but who now live in different countries, I thought it would be nice to meet some new girlfriends to just hang out with whenever and wherever.

A couple of days in and I realized that I was not getting any matches even though I had swiped right on a large number of people that I thought would make great potential friends. I have a simple and yet straight-forward profile which lists interests that are similar to those of the women that I was swiping right on.

A light bulb went off in my head and I wondered if the reason I was not getting any matches was because I am black and a great majority of the women in my 15-mile radius is white. I decided to do an experiment and changed my main profile picture to one of my boyfriend and I (he’s white) and lo and behold, almost suddenly I had a couple of new matches!

The part of me who thinks that people are inherently good wants to believe that it was pure coincidence that I started getting matches as soon as I changed my profile picture to one that had my white boyfriend in it. However, the realistic part of me knows that, most likely, people were swiping left on me based solely on the color of my skin because if they had taken the time to read my short bio, they would realize that we had quite a bit in common and were looking for similar things in our new friendships.

Although I was initially frustrated and annoyed that people were potentially dismissing me because of the color of my skin, I had to be honest with myself and come to terms with my very own implicit biases because I was doing the same exact thing that I was afraid white women were doing to me: I was swiping left on other black women!!! I was saddened by this realization and immediately decided to not swipe left or right on anyone until I had read their bios. Then, and only then, if I did not find that we had anything in common or if there was something in their bio that read like a red flag, I would swipe left. Otherwise, I was going to swipe right on everyone.

I honestly do not know what to make of this self-realization because I am a black woman myself! I’ve been thinking a lot about this for the past week and I feel confused, saddened, and embarrassed by my own actions. The silver lining for me is that I realized what I was doing and made a conscious effort not to let it happen again.