Synopsis Of The Film 'The New Jim Crow'

Prisons are simply ineffective in the state that they are in now. Placing young people in jail for a mistake they made long ago is not a fix for dangerous communities. For example, if an 18 year old commits a nonviolent crime, he could be placed in jail for five years. He would be taking a spot of residence in jail when he is not a threat to the public, while vicious criminals ran around wreaking havoc on the streets.

In her book, Are Prisons Obsolete? Davis dedicates an entire chapter connecting the system of slavery to the current prison system. In order to understand how prisoners are a product of racial ideologies, one must understand that racism is not just an “unfortunate aberration of the past” (Davis 24), but rather it continues to “profoundly influence contemporary structures, attitudes, and behaviors” (Davis 24). When the 13th Amendment was passed, it abolished slavery and Blacks were no longer legal property. However, it did not get rid of the idea that Black people should be harshly governed.

In the opening of the introduction of The New Jim Crow the author clearly outlines the power of one race to another for example how the great-great grandfather of Jarvis’s Cotton was denied to vote for being a slave (Alexander 2010). The great grandfather of Jarvis’s beaten to death by the Klan for attempting to vote (Alexander 2010) and Jarvis himself could not vote because he was labeled as a felon. Most offenders today that get out from prison face discrimination in voting, employment, housing and receiving public assistance linking toward the Jim Crow era. Most incarcerated individuals are still racially segregated which racial bias still exist in our criminal justice system today not only in the Southern states. Some people still believe

In light of my freshman year summer reading assignment of The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness by Michelle Alexander, I found intergroup theory to be an intriguing solution to Alexander’s assertion. Intergroup theory proposes that both organization groups and identity groups affect one’s intergroup relations and thereby shape one’s cognitive formations (Ott, Parks, Simpson, 2008). Alexander exchanges her views on the correlation between race related issues specific to African American males and mass incarceration in the United States. Further, Alexander goes on to provide statistics to show how African American males are predisposed to mass incarceration. I feel the solutions to the problems Alexander raise in her

The justice system in the United States of America is not fair. Michelle Alexander writes a great article “Locked Up In America” describing how people gets into the justice system and how their life is when coming out of jail. People that are convicted of any crime they are labeled as criminals and felons. Criminals does not get properly punished for their crimes if they did they wouldn’t be so many people going in and out of jail. The justice system should have different ways of punishing a person according to the crime they commit, just by putting them in jail and assuming that is going to change them is not a good way of going about that.

Thesis: It is very important for the sake of Americans tax dollars that we change the way that prisons are run and increase the productivity of inmates so when they are released from jail they are ready to be a productive member in society and have the confidence to achieve new goals. Introduction: Day after day, millions of inmates sit in jail doing nothing productive with their lives. We are paying to house inmates that may not even have a good reason to be there. For example, drug offenders are being kept with murderers and other violent offenders.

A finding from a study done by the Bureau of Justice Statistics shows that 67.8 percent of ex-convicts were rearrested. Two-thirds of them spent their time in prison waiting for the release, only to go back into that dirty old cell again. Why don’t they try to get a real job, earn their own living and cherish the second chance we grant them. Let’s step down from the moral high ground for a second. Often released prisoners lack the skills and knowledge to keep up with the pace of society.

From Plantation to Prison: The Cyclical Practices of Racialized Punishment Slavery resembled the parent figure in American history. Its’ foundation and ideologies stem from the previous failures and successes of its parent colonialism. Like colonialism, slavery held deep-rooted feelings favoring dominance through superiority but still saw the significance of keeping its’ possessions in good, working condition. On the other hand you have the prison industrial complex. The offspring of slavery, the prison industrial complex is nothing more than a damaged, avaricious, emotionless child who has been privileged and prejudiced since its reproductions.

In the qualitative analysis of Murray (2012), parents are both an affirmative agent of socialization and of social control. While a parent is incarcerated they are either unable to maintain their influence at all towards to their children, or can only act in a restricted capacity. By means of parent are the role models to all children. If a parent is incarcerated it could change the perception of the chid to their parents. Bestowing to The Pew Charitable Trusts (2010), parents who go to prison or jail are unable to provide financially for their children while they are incarcerated, and due to the loss of income and institutionalized stigma that come with being incarcerated, they often have difficulty finding sustainable employment once

There’s a multitude of things that need to be repaired in our system, and prison is one of them. Prison reform is an important issue because we need to take care of everyone and with the way we treat criminals, we do not see them as equal. We need to assess illegal acts correctly instead of trying to put people in jail for the rest of their lives. We also need to work more on how we try to rehabilitate people. Instead of barring convicts off from the rest of us, we need to teach them how to integrate, so they can live better lives than they did

95% of people will be released from prison out of the 600,000+ that are sentenced every year but prison is said to be a revolving door. People get released just to end up back in there. Roughly three-quarters of them will be sentenced to prison again within five years of being released, this leads to the first benefit.

Although slavery ended over 150 years ago, the director wants to give the audience the idea of how prison system links to slavery. Another positive thought is that they take in consideration social class on this social problem. They talked about corporations such as the CCA, which benefits from the prisoner’s punishment. For example, the SB1070 in Arizona which gave the right to the police to stop anyone and ask their status in the country. In addition, it is also mentioned that the corporation ALEC has a financial interest.

Although some believe that criminals do not deserve the same rights as civilians, the transition from the real world to life behind bars is taking enough rights away on its own. Prisoners should be protected from cruel and unusual punishment, sexual harassment and sex crimes, and poor living conditions. These crimes behind the walls of prisons make it difficult for inmates to adapt and feel safe. Their safety is being neglected, not only by other prisoners, but by the workers themselves (Hunter). Staff members get away with these crimes so easily; in return, they provide resources to the prisoners that are challenging to get such as cigarettes, extra telephone cards, and helping them pass drug tests.

After working with these men for months, you begin to look past the societal mask they are forced to wear due to their past mistakes, and begin to see them as real genuine people. [Thesis and Preview] Life after prison affects all realms of a community. Through the process of leaving prison, to jobs, and to living conditions, I hope we have a better understanding on life after incarceration from this speech.

Prison used to be looked at has a place to try a rehabilitate someone from their crimes so they may join society again has a law-abiding citizen, however, that has changed recently has we have begun to see the government turn these duties over to privately owned prisons. Turning the rehabilitation process into a form of business that has become very lucrative. The government did this to save money and cutback cost, however, with the correctional system turning into a large business it needs consumers, those consumers have come in the form of minority prisoners punished harshly for non-violent crimes now spending 2-8 years in prison in a lot of circumstances if not more. This factor has been a big aid in sending minority members to prison because private owners have spent so much money on facilities that they expect to have them occupied which in some cases puts pressure to provide prisoners. And in other cases elites work in cohort to make sure the prison population remains high so they may all benefit