Introduction
While mass incarceration has been used as a measure of crime prevention, it has failed to address social problems such as drug addiction, poverty or misbehavior in school. The government and politicians do not seem to have the interest in solving these problems using alternative means rather than prisons. At the end of the day, the policymakers continue to make laws which encourage mass incarceration rather than solving the real problem. This challenge has made the United States be a country with one of the largest prison population in the whole world with most of the prisoners being of African descent (Sered, 2018). This paper argues that the mass incarceration was created by the failure of policymakers and the pundits to dissolve the Negro family, their failure to address the problem of poverty amongst the African black community, and their choice to instead expand the criminal justice system alleging to maintain law and order.
The Rise of Mass Incarceration and War on Drugs
The United States is today the leading country in mass incarceration globally. For a long time in the 20th century, the incarceration rate in the United States was about 100 in 100,000 residents. However, in beginning 1972, the rate of incarceration in the United States began to gradually increase (McKim, 2017). In 2008, the United States reached the peak incarcerating 760 people in 100,000 residents. The steady increase in incarceration in the United States cannot be said to be as a result of an increase in crime, because the rates of crimes independently fluctuate the incarceration rates (McKim, 2017). The increasing rates of incarceration can be explained by the changing laws making so many crimes punishable by lengthening of sentences and incarceration (Sered, 2018). This gradual increase was inspired by the implementation of the mandatory minimums to offenses related to drug peddling and drug addiction beginning the 1980s. These laws require that one who is found with these offenses to face strict penalties in courts despite the tricky circumstances.
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During the Obama Presidency, the government put in place several measures to ease the mandatory minimums (McKim, 2017). The Attorney General, Eric Holder, in 2013, produced a memo to the prosecutor asking him to prosecute the offenses with mandatory minimum sentences only for the worst criminals (McKim, 2017). The Attorney General Jeff Sessions recently released a memo, asking the prosecutor only to prosecute crimes that are serious. The sentiments by the Attorney General Jeff Sessions in his memo are a repeat of the failed test to deal with mass incarceration in the past. The Congress began to lengthen the incarceration sentences in the 1970s (Brownsberger, 2000). This led to the Comprehensive Crime Control Act in 1984 which put in place a mandatory minimum sentence and did away with the federal parole (Brownsberger, 2000).
Beginning from 1985 to 1992, the federal policymakers started to impose longer sentences for drug offenses. The action by the legislators in passing such laws was seen as the beginning of the war against drugs. Several laws were passed including the Anti Drug Abuse Act of 1986 which put more mandatory minimum sentences (Brownsberger, 2000). Of more significance, the act set five-year mandatory minimum sentences for offenses which involved 100 grams of heroin, 5 grams of crack cocaine, and 500 grams of cocaine (Brownsberger, 2000). Several years later, the new policies added 5 years minimum of mandatory sentence for any offense which involved simple possession of crack cocaine, even without any evidence that the person in possession of the drug had an intention of selling it. Before this legislation was passed, the maximum penalty for anyone who was found to be in possession of any drug was one year (Sered, 2018).
Beginning the early 1990s, the third crackdown on drug offenses hit again, this round involving longer convictions and sentencing anyone who had been previously been convicted of drug offenses. The legislatures also introduced policies which required people convicted of drug offenses to full sentences. The laws were getting passed at a time when the rates of crimes had started to reduce. Today, several more states have three strikes provision.
Mass Incarceration and the Falling Crime rates
Even though the current rate of incarceration is high with 1 out of 37 adults, the figures are lower compared to the past. There are two reasons as to why the incarceration rate has gone down in the last ten years. First, the legislatures have come to the realization that punitive laws are not of much significance. Second, several states have realized that they are not able to fund the many incarceration systems they had put in place in the past (Caldwell & Davis, 2014). The Great Recession of 2007 had provided the lawmakers with the opportunity to reduce the costs of prison systems. 30 years later after the process of putting up massive incarceration systems, many states have noted that they are no longer able to continue funding the huge prison systems.
For this reason, they started to let go of some prisoners to help in reducing costs. The number of prisoners began to decline significantly. By 2011, a quarter of states shuttered down or was planning to do away with the prisons (Sered, 2018). With the many strong arguments against the current criminal justice system, the question that experts should ponder is why mass incarceration has continued to persist. In part, the answer to this question lies in the fact that convicting many citizens in the last four decades has made the prison systems unable to reform the convicts through a democratic process (Sered, 2018). The high rates of incarceration have in fact undermined the democratic system of the United States.
Obama in 2010, accented to the First Sentencing Act repealing mandatory sentence of five years to offenders who did not have past conviction records and for repeat offenders who were in possession of fewer than 28 grams of cocaine. The change helped in bringing down the conviction disparity which had existed between the powder cocaine and crack cocaine (Caldwell & Davis, 2014). Several activists had asked for the reduction for years since the difference between powder cocaine and crack cocaine is almost insignificant given the fact that crack cocaine is produced by adding baking soda to the powder form and heating it. In Spite of the fact that there is no difference in the usage of crack cocaine between the white and black communities, 85% of the 30,000 people who were convicted for crack cocaine in 2010, were blacks (Wallace, 2012). 2012 witnessed a steady decrease in the admission rates at the federal courts. In 2015, only 46, 912 offenders were taken to federal prisons. (McKim, 2017). This is the lowest number in a period of 15 years. The steady increase in mass incarceration was witnessed in the 1970s, a time which had high rates of property and violent crimes. Even as the rates of crimes started to fall, policymakers continued to pass punitive laws.
The Impact of Mass Incarceration on Drug Offenses
Incarceration has an insignificant impact on the rates of crimes. If anything, incarceration is amongst the factors influencing the rates of crimes. Fluctuations, economic changes, a huge drug market and community level responses are some of the great influencers (McKim, 2017). Again, there are limited returns from incarceration. While incarceration on violent offenders helps in reducing violent crimes, incarceration for nonviolent offenders has an insignificant effect on the rates of crimes. The incarceration has however continued to rise despite the fall of crimes (Caldwell & Davis, 2014). While there is less crime today compared to the past, the public does not have the knowledge of the drop because of high incarceration rates. For that reason, the fear of crime has continued to persist. This has translated into punitive policies despite the decline in the rates of crime and the failure of these laws to prevent crimes.
Conclusion
Mass incarceration in the United States is an issue with dire consequences. Whereas the expansion of the penal institutions in the United States is a practice in the policy changes rather than the rising rates in crimes, it would be challenging to reverse this trend. The need for detailed and comprehensive sentencing is clear but the political limits on the remedies of legislation and the failure of the penal institutions to improve the condition, make this approach to be uncertain. The failure of the criminal justice in the United States to deal with drug war can be seen from afar as policy failures. The gradual increase in the rate of recidivism indicates that the prisons have not succeeded in rehabilitating the people who are locked up. If the two-thirds of the parolees get back to prison, it is because the economy does not provide them with jobs which can keep them occupied since several states highly exclude the ex-felons. The return of these individuals to the social systems as provided by incarceration makes sense to a certain degree.
References
Brownsberger, W. N. (2000). Race matters: Disproportionality of incarceration for drug dealing in Massachusetts. Journal of Drug Issues , 30 (2), 345-374.
Caldwell, K., & Davis, C. (2014). The New Jim Crow: The War on Drugs and Mass Incarceration.
McKim, A. (2017). Addicted to rehab: Race, gender, and drugs in the era of mass incarceration . Rutgers University Press.
Sered, S. (2018). Book Review: Addicted to Rehab: Race, Gender, and Drugs in the Era of Mass Incarceration by Allison McKim.
Wallace, B. C. (2012). Controversies in knowledge translation for community-based drug treatment: the need to the end policies of the war on drugs and mass incarceration of drug offenders to achieve health equity. Journal of Urban Health , 89 (6), 894-904.
