Transcript PowerPoint - GEOCITIES.ws

Soc 329 - MoJo
Forty years ago, the US prison population
was less than 200,000.
The IR was about 100 per 100,000 population
(about normal for prosperous countries)
Today, the US prison population is more than
1,400,000 – more than seven times larger!
Soc 329 - MoJo
Another 700,000+ people are in jails.
The US now has the highest IR on earth!
2 million + people incarcerated
IR over 700 (minority IR much higher!)
Soc 329 - MoJo
How We Got to Two Million:
How did the Land of the Free become the
world's leading jailer?
It wasn’t crime -political manipulation of fear of crime.
Soc 329 - MoJo
Main Elements:
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War on drugs
Harsher sentences for petty crimes
Mandatory sentencing laws
Three strikes laws
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“Get tough” policies in general
Soc 329 - MoJo
Targets minorities
“Revenge” for the civil rights movement?
Soc 329 - MoJo
Cost is huge, but creates opportunities:
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businesses
small towns
politicians
the media
Others (phone, bus, etc.)
Soc 329 - MoJo
Incubating Disease
Prisons are rife with infectious illnesses
– and threaten to spread them to the
public.
Sex, drug sharing, and simple exposure
spreads diseases in prisons and outside.
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HIV
Hepatitis C
Tuberculosis
Meningitis
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Cheap/poor medical care typical in prison
why?
Medical care is expensive – the “logic”
why should “criminals” get medical care
that poor people who are not criminals
can’t afford?
Soc 329 - MoJo
Bad Investment
Gary Johnson, former Republican
governor of New Mexico, on why the
war on drugs is a waste of money.
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War on drugs is tremendously expensive,
.... and is a failure.
Money would be better spent on rehab
and drug treatment, which might actually
reduce crime in the long run.
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Breeding Violence
Locking people up is supposed to make
our streets safer, but it may be doing
just the opposite.
Soc 329 - MoJo
Stress & violence lead to post-traumatic
stress disorder.
Feuds continue on the outside.
Isolation has even worse effects.
Prisoners released with nothing -and “help” is mostly blocked.
Soc 329 - MoJo
Left Behind
Hundreds of thousands of children have
a parent behind bars.
What are the social costs of their loss?
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Psychological damage – “at risk” kids.
No resources for them either --into juvenile and welfare bureaucracies.
Many get in trouble because of damage.
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Liberty and Justice for Some:
Jesse Jackson on the moral costs of mass
incarceration.
Gains of civil rights movement are being
rolled back by binge and war on drugs.
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What's the alternative?
Society has to respond to lawbreakers,
but it doesn't always have to lock them
up.
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Because of the huge cost of the binge,
states are beginning to experiment with
alternatives.
So far the results are mixed.
Soc 329 - MoJo
** Browse state by state atlas
Next
Corr, Inc.
… and yet more problems with
the imprisonment binge