Pros And Cons Of The Prison-Industrial Complex

developed—the first institution in which men were both “confined and set to labor in order to learn the habits of industry” (LeBaron, 2012, p.331). Although prisons had been designed to enforce and promote punishment, retribution and deterrence, they have also fallen into the conceptual belief that they were in many instances, nothing more than a sweat shop for the socially-undesired. At this point in history, there was very little reform and an immense lack of regulation for prisons or for the proper way they should be ran. Finances. In modern-day calculations, prison labor has been rather beneficial to the U.S. government, bringing in an average of 1.6 billion dollars in 1997.

In 1971, 1 out of 12 Americans were incarcerated. Since that time, the prisoner ratio has exponentially increased; today, that ratio is 1 out of 51. With that number continuing to rise, many problems result out of it. Prison overcrowding is a growing problem in the United States. The number of people being taken in has regressive effects on the purpose behind imprisonment.

In 2014 there were 215,000 people incarcerated in federal prisons, almost half were there for drug-related offenses with the enactment of mandatory minimum sentencing laws for drug offenses in the 1980s, increasing the population by more than 800 percent (Malcolm, 2014.) “Moreover, drug offenders make up the single largest category of incarcerated offenders in Tennessee, serving an average sentence of 9.7 years” (Malcolm, 2014, paragraph 21.) By limit sentencing, we can address the issues of high cost, by using probation and parole for more misdemeanor

Prompt 2 First Draft Prison Industrial Complex (PIC) is a term used to describe the overlapping interests of government and industry that use surveillance, policing, and imprisonment as solutions to social, economic, and political problems. Angela Davis is a journalist and American political activist who believes that the U.S practice of super-incarceration is closer to new age slavery than any system of criminal justice. She defines the PIC as biased for criminalizing communities of color and used to make profit for corporations from the prisoner’s suffering. In her book, Are Prisons Obsolete? , she argues that the prison systems are no longer in use and out of date since prisons just keep increasing as each become more and more populated.

One of the hardest challenges for the United States, in terms of the criminal justice system, is the overcrowding of prisons. In fact, the problem has become so big that the U.S. has more people in jail than any other country on earth – about 2.2 million people, to be exact. To deal with this growing issue, governments and correctional administrations began to invent creative alternatives and policies to handle the overcrowding and to reduce the cost. One of these alternatives has been the use of private prisons, where the individuals in charge of the ownership, operation, and responsibility shifts from the public sector (the government) to the private sector (a third party contracted by a government agency). In order to make profits, private

Eugene Jarecki States that ,“The prison industrial complex, to put it in it’s crassest term, is a system of industrial mass incarceration. So there’s what you call bureaucratic thrust behind it. It’s hard to shut off because politicians rely upon the steady flow of jobs to their district that the prison system and its related industries promise” (Jareckil 1). Mass incarceration is high rates of imprisonment. Even though when you commit the crime you should do the time.

The first step is for a better State and Federal Representation in the Government. The United States prison population changed after President Richard Nixon declared war on drugs in the 1970’s. The United States prisons around the whole country are overcrowded due to the War on Drugs and the 3x law. Many prisoners have been arrested for drug

The first best practice to consider to reduce Ohio’s prison population is the state of New York. In 1973, New York’s Governor, Nelson Rockefeller enacted the “Rockefeller Drug

The War on Drugs and Mass Incarceration The United States incarcerates at a higher rate than any other country in the world. In fact, the U.S. alone is home to 25% of the world’s prison population; this, however, wasn’t always the case. The rapid growth of the U.S. prison population can be traced two decades back to the declaration of the War on Drugs by President Ronald Regan in the early eighties and previously mentioned by President Richard Nixon. In an effort to reassure White Americans’ of their elite positioning in the underlying racial caste system in a time where inner-city communities were facing major economic collapses, the Regan administration called for the reinforcement of the sale, distribution, and consumption of illicit drugs,

Drug Addiction Imagine a life where someone is controlled by something that doesn't have a pulse, controlled by a substance that they can see ruining their life but for some reason they can't control the outcome. Substance abuse costs the health care system about $11 billion, with overall costs reaching $193 billion. That $11 Billion dollars could go to treating the addiction rather than treating the outcome, and instead of locking up low level drug offenders, we as a society should help them through their difficult time. And according to the National Survey on Drug Use and Health (NSDUH), approximately 27 million Americans, or 10.2% of the American population over the age of 12 reported using illicit drugs in 2014. 10% of our society is

51% of all prisoners released are returned to the prison system and nearly 30% are returned within the first six months of their release (Pinard, 2006). Roughly two-thirds of all prisoners are rearrested within three years (Pinard, 2006). The high rates of incarceration and recidivism have reinvigorated debate about the purpose of the prison. The time is ripe to debate prison reform. "America 's penal system needs a top-to-bottom overhaul - and a movement of people ready to do something about it is taking shape nicely" (McCarthy,

Those who find themselves sentenced to time in a penitentiary, jail, or prison are at risk of either being broken or strengthened by the time they spend behind bars. There is a great debate of whether or not the prison system in the United States is positive or negative. The following will briefly highlight the positives, negatives, and possible alternatives for our nation's prison system. First, there is a long list of negatives that the prison system in America brings. The prison system is filled with crime, hate, and negativity almost as much as the free world is.

Private prisons were constructed as a response to the overcrowding in federal prisons during the 1980s; many people speculate whether or not private prisons are good or bad. Critics argue that private prisons like any business are driven by profit, and prisons profit from the amount of criminals they are able to contain which gives the private prisons and their shareholders incentive to keep the prison population high and expenses low. The National Council on Crime and Delinquency estimates that over the next ten years state and federal expenditures on prisons will amount to $351 billion6. These government subsidies along with the support of private prison shareholders allow the prison industrial complex to keep their power and influence

Implications for this book include Santos’s desire to help fix the prison system and the mass incarceration issue the U.S is facing. Santos is also helping other that are being prosecuted by the failing system. Upon being released and piecing his life back together, Santos started his own foundation called the Michael G Santos foundation. Through this foundation, Santos is helping bring awareness to the socials issues that result from mass incarceration while also helping former prisoner transition and integrate successfully back into the work force. Through Santos’s hard work and commitment, Santos successfully helped Maine’s department of corrections enhance their prison system by the virtue of his own programs that he has developed post

The term "Prison Industrial Complex" (PIC) is used to express the rapid expansion of the United States inmate population. The prison industrial complex (PIC) is an expression used to describe the connection between the interests of government and industry that use surveillance, policing, and imprisonment the resolution to economic, social and political problems. The P.I.C helps to maintain the authority of people who get their power through racial, economic, social and other privileges. Power is collected and maintained through the PIC in many ways, including creating mass media images that reinforce the stereotypes associated with people of color, less fortunate people, homosexual people, immigrants, youth, elderly and other oppressed communities. These stereotypes imply that those who are associated with these groups of society are criminals, corrupt, delinquent, deviant, etc.