City of Inmates by Kelly Lytle Hernández

Hernández’s work is one of the most inspiring that touches the history of the correctional system of the US. For a long time, the country has been known to have the largest number of people in jails of the entire developed world. In fact, Hernández clarifies on the statistics that has come to place the nation as one that would pay private investors to incarcerate its citizens. The novel, unlike the rest that would adopt a fictitious approach to commenting on issues of national interest, uses historic documentation that suggests the fact that the policies of the nation are to blame for the issue of incarceration that is now at a catastrophic level. While reading the novel one would be drawn to the meticulous use of historic data in the construction of the arguments. It would be possible, for instance, for one to understand that the policing policies adopted by the nation have not necessarily lowered the rates of crime, as they have increased the rate of people spending their lives in prison. 

Reading the novel proved my thoughts on the motivation of the criminal justice system of the country. For instance, I thought, “Why does the country have such large numbers of the vulnerable populations, especially children in correctional facilities?” This question appears normal, but on critical though and using data and incite from Hernández’s book, I realize that inadequate policy has been the greatest factor contributing to the rise in the number of the incarcerated population. The policy has changed from that which targets to rehabilitate the offenders, including the children to that which seeks to deter crime from happening. The book provides further insight into why there are so many police checks in some areas of the cities and urban places of the country compared to others. I understand, as anyone else would do after reading the book, that the policy of crime deterrence makes it necessary for more people to be locked out of interaction with the public. The best option, as Hernández suggests, is the prison. It is even worse when the legal system does sufficient mechanisms that distinguish crimes committed by minors from those of the adults in the eye of ‘justice.’ For this reason, instances of children being tried and sentenced as adults have been on the rise. 

The author satirizes the approach of the US to the prevention of crime through suggesting that its correctional department is a lucrative business opportunity for some groups of individuals. One would get the notion that the federal and state governments have made it a priority to lock up as many people as possible. When the government appeared to be failing in its provision of enough incarceration facilities, the author of the books suggests that it contracted private developers to assist through building more prisons and other detention centers that would enable the nation accommodate its over two million people in prisons. Therefore, since the incentive of business is to make profit, the US is unlikely to reduce the number of people in its prisons and other centers offering correctional services if it keeps its current policy and maintains the commercialization of the prison services. 

The book also contributes to the understanding of many people local and international that the criminal justice system of the US is biased. I understand that some people might not welcome this argument, but Hernández uses evidence collected for over two centuries to indicate the manner in which policies meant for crime deterrence have been targeting specific groups of people in the country. His ideas coincide with what other sources suggest of the racial characteristics of the incarcerated populations. Simply put, the weakest people on the social ladder in the US are the most affected by the policies meant to stop crime and violence. Weakness may be a term too general to describe what Hernández finds to be the most disappointing element of the criminal justice system of the nation. This term denotes the fact that the US made it its policy to eliminate racial minorities, including the natives, the Africa Americans, and all other minorities who came into the country to look for opportunities for self-advancement (Hernández, 2017). The term is also used in this reflection to suggest the poor. It is no surprise, for instance, to find that the US department of justice has prioritized regions of low income around the nation as those with the highest instances of crime. Hernández manages to argue efficiently that these policies explain why Los Angles, being one of the most populated American cities, has the largest number of people in prison of all the cities around the globe. 

One might also discover that that the age of mass incarceration that Hernández captures in his book is to blame for some of the economic problems of the US. For instance, the author suggests that the country spends more than $ 1 billion per year in the management of its jails and other facilities of correctional services. It is understandable that the high costs of the correctional system of the country result from the fact that some people have commercialized the system and that they would take nothing out of their investments than profits. Therefore, when political regimes claim to be fighting the economic problems and fail to consider the excessive expenditures by the federal and state governments on incarceration, they fail to realize the need to transform the policing towards crime deterrence and the enhancement of the social and economic wellbeing of the public. Why, for example, would a developed government, such as the US spend more money on incarceration than it does on education, infrastructure improvement, and health insurance? Does it mean that the policymakers had rather jailed the public than improved their lives through the creation of more employment opportunities? Hernández’s book provides insight into just how much the government does not care about the poor and the less privileged. 

Sensing this lack of good will from the government, Hernández argues, the targeted population has found ways of fighting back. He suggests that some of them have burst out of prisons, destroyed property, and done a series of other nasty things that continue to identify them as criminals. This argument explain in part why the policymakers have continued to identify some groups of people, especially the African Americans as being susceptible to crime compared to others, such as the Whites. As long as some groups continue to be overrepresented in the criminal justice system, the rebellion would continue existing, which also means that the police and other personnel involved in the criminal justice system are not going to give up on their motive to eliminate such people. Altogether, I find Hernández’s account of the injustices in the criminal justice system appealing to read since though satirical to the policy approach to the nation, points out the issues that most writes would shy from writing because of reasons that would identify them as potential candidates of the ever-growing incarceration system. 

Reference 

Hernández, K. L. (2017).  City of Inmates: Conquest, Rebellion, and the Rise of Human Caging in Los Angeles, 1771–1965 . UNC Press Books.