Mass Incarceration Redefined

Mass incarceration is a crisis in the United States.  Thanks to an expansion of awareness around the issue, partially due to Michelle Alexander’s “The New Jim Crow” and the loud voices of advocates, the general public is becoming more aware of this horrific social problem.  However, how people define the issue is another battle.  Many individuals who are personally unaffected by mass incarceration or do not study it, may not fully understand the issue.  Some believe that individuals end up in jail because they made mistakes and that is it.  However, mass incarceration represents a larger societal issue.  With the prison population rising so astronomically over the last 30 years, it must be clear to society that there is a greater force at play and a defect in society allowing this to occur.

The war on drugs launched in the 1980s fueled the growth of the prison populations.  For starters, legal penalties surrounding drug play a huge role in the expanding prison population since a majority of inmates are incarcerated for non-violent drug offenses.  Additionally, the systematic political and social barriers that inhibit returning citizens contribute to ”employment and financial difficulties, poor marriage outcomes, disruption and instability in children’s lives, and increased rates of communicable diseases such as HIV-AIDS have all been documented among the communities so disproportionately affected by incarceration policies” (Raphael, 2007-2008). As a result, citizens who are returning to such communities reenter the cyclical patterns they started in and change becomes difficult and upward mobility almost impossible.

Mass incarceration is not an individual issue, a county issue, or even a state issue.  Mass incarceration is an American problem that strongly affects politics, society, and the economy.  If changes are not made soon, the issue will only continue to grow.  It was our hope that this blog would bring about awareness of the issue to begin to educate the problem not only about the problem, but the various facets embedded in the problem.  Finally, we hope that this blog will continue with your help, your comments, and your support in spreading awareness about mass incarceration and encouraging research and education.