How is the US’s approach to policing and/or incarceration distinct from that of other countries? Is it effective? Why or why not?
The US’s approach to incarceration and policing is rooted in the history of slavery and discrimination. In the textbook it mentions a book by Michelle Alexander who relates mass incarceration to the US trying to continue social control of people (Golash-Boza 2017: pg 310). WEB Dubois also stated that the prison system is “slavery in private hands”. The consensus and the facts are that the US’s incarceration system disproportionately affects people of color. One example the textbook offers on how mass incarceration in the US is different than incarceration in other countries are the reasons people are put behind bars. “While drugs such as marijuana and cocaine have been decriminalized in western Europe, the United States has enhanced the punishments for use of illicit drugs” (Golash-Boza 2017: pg 312). These drugs are the most prevalent in communities that are poorer where the majority of people are black and brown. Another staggering statistic is that the US’s rate of incarceration in 2017 was almost 8 times as much as western Europe’s. The biggest reason for mass incarceration in the US is the war on drugs. The war on drugs disproportionately effects people of color for the same reasons stated above. Another key difference between the US and other prison systems around the world is that in the US prisons are mostly all privatized. In addition, the conditions in these prisons are extremely poor compared to that of a country like Germany or the Netherlands. People in the US prison system are treated like second class citizens and are not pushed to do better whereas in countries like Germany and the Netherlands the focus is on reintegration in society and avoiding the possibility of going back to prison. The US’s approach to incarceration is extremely flawed. First, it directly affects people of color more, the justice system historically charges people of color with harsher sentences for less severe crimes than white people. Secondly, the prison system is overcrowded and does not focus on reintegration as much as it should or in some cases not at all. Finally, many of the crimes that people are convicted of are crimes that can be punished in other ways than incarceration like mandating education courses or house arrest. Second peer…….1. Incarceration
COLLAPSE
To start off with the obvious, the United States has the highest rate of incarceration around the world. Within this statistic, the amount of racism is profound and is likely a reason for the United States incarceration rate being so high. “One in three black men will be imprisoned in their lifetime,” (Ch. 11, slide 6). This definitely adds into the incarceration rate being so high, and the inflation of racism in the social justice system still. Furthermore, the term sentencing disparity is that “Blacks are twenty-one percent more likely than whites to receive a mandatory minimum sentence when facing an eligible charge, and black drug defendants are twenty percent more likely than white drug defendants to be sentenced to prison,” (Ch. 11, slide 11). So, just because of the color of a black person’s skin, they are automatically subject to a longer sentence time. Even besides all of this added prison time a black non-felon man gets, his chances of scoring a job is still three percent less than a white man who blatantly commited a felony (Ch. 11, slide 18). The policing and incarceration in the United States proves itself unjust, racist, and ineffective according to all of these statistics. There are other ways to punish people who commit crimes than to just throw them in jail for long periods of time. Also, the fact that black people are still looked down upon compared to whites. These incarceration rates not only cause blacks to suffer in jail for longer than they deserve to, but also affect their life chances of scoring a job and being successful later in life. They seem to be doomed to fail from birth, residing in the white-favored United States.
