Draft #2 of Research Paper

Abstract
In the United States, there are the highest number of prisoners in the entire world. Of those prisoners, minorities seem to be a trend. Were there factors other than the crime committed that resulted in a minority out behind bars?  Things such as race, income and level of education were researched as a possible explanation as to why these individuals are prisoners. Race is a more accurate conclusion as to why this is occurring. Articles used in this paper convey that African American individuals are the most targeted group of people in the United States in regards to mass incarceration. Many sources, however, argue that others such as Hispanics are indifferent when it comes to the topic. The research in this paper proves that minorities are targeted because of the way they look, different.

Are Minorities Only Incarcerated for Their Crimes or Are There Other Motives?

Freedom should be a right obtained by everyone in the U.S. This right should not be taken away by anyone because of their race. Although many scenarios can lead someone to the predicament of prison, things someone can’t change shouldn’t be one of the reason why. Minorities in the U.S are a large percentage of the prison population and are overrepresented when it comes to poverty, faulty education and social injustice. Targets of incarceration seem to be a reoccurring pattern. Minorities in the United States are preyed upon in society and waited on to commit crimes in order to become a statistic. Their crimes are looked past upon when their skin is a different color, when their race seems alarming, and when their background defies norms. Even though crimes are committed, there are existing reasons why minorities are more likely to end up behind bars.

  The basic meaning of mass incarceration is when a large number of people are sent to prison. Like Garland mentioned “Mass imprisonment implies a rate of imprisonment and a size of prison population that is markedly above the historical and comparative norm for societies of this type” (2001). Mass incarceration is something that occurs greatly in the United States. According to (DeFina, Hannon, 2013) “During the past 30 years, incarceration rates have risen by more than 300%”. The War on Drugs was one of the causes of mass incarceration starting around the late 1980’s. Laws made in order to decrease crime and drug use worked in the eyes of the law, but the results of these laws were deteriorating communities. Akubiec, Kilcer, Sager stated “The largest impact from the War on Drugs is by far the isolation and classification of minorities as second-class citizens” (2009, pg.1).

With America’s racist past, many believe that race correlates to mass incarceration. Of course, the War on Drugs had a more negative effect on black communities. The NAACP mentioned “Largely a function of the “War on Drugs” which began in the 1980s, incarceration is one of the most serious racial inequities in current U.S. society. African-Americans now constitute almost one-half of the 2.3 million prison/jail population; they are incarcerated at nearly a rate nearly six times that of Whites”. The statistics show that because the war on drugs brought even more racial inequality into society, incarceration amongst African Americans increased greatly. This is a clear representation of not only racism, but profiling. This proves that if an African American individual and a White man commit the same crime, the person of color will receive a much harsher sentence just because of the difference in race. 
 This infographic depicts the statistics of incarceration between different races. One can also see that women and Hispanics are included in this graphic because they’re although they are all capable of being incarcerated, and are all included in the U.S population. The ratio is significantly different when it comes to black men and white men and it has to do with the authority that arrest and process these men. Several times, police officers are ordered to bring someone into their precinct and in order to fulfill their job, they sought mainly after people of color because of prejudice 


Level of education is another factor as to why minorities are more likely to become victims of mass incarceration. If one dismisses school and decides to involve themselves in activity on the streets, they’re more likely to be admitted into a juvenile center or even jail. Wald and Losen stated that “Minorities are heavily overrepresented among those most harshly sanctioned in schools. Nationally, black students are 2.6 times as likely to be suspended as white students” (Wald, Losen. 2003). In the School to Prison Pipeline, children who are oppressed in schools tend to perform unsatisfactory. In the cartoon, students are automatically being placed in jail because their public-school education is not sufficing for them to continue their education. When schools are not getting an efficient amount of funds, the poor education and lack of motivation leads students to a life of crime, unfortunately, landing them in prisons. Many low funded schools are placed in neighborhoods with individuals who have low-income, a large majority being African American and Hispanic. This makes a new generation of potential prisoners. 






References

DeFina, R., & Hannon, L. (2013). The Impact of Mass Incarceration on Poverty. Crime & Delinquency, 59(4), 562-586. doi:10.1177/0011128708328864 

Garland, D. (2001). Mass imprisonment: social causes and consequences. London: Sage.

Jakubiec, David; Kilcer, Andrew; and Sager, William, " The War on drugs" (2009). RIT: College of Liberal Arts 2009, Retrieved from h p://scholarworks.rit.edu/article/1662 

NAACP (n.d.). Criminal justice fact sheet. Retrieved from http://www.naacp.org/pages/criminal-justice-fact-sheet

Wald, J. and Losen, D. J. (2003), Defining and redirecting a school-to-prison pipeline. New Directions for Youth Development, 2003: 9–15. doi:10.1002/yd.51