Incarceration Policy Analysis
The United States (U.S.) has the highest incarceration rate in the world. The federal government considers incarceration to be the most practical correctional observation method. However, incarceration has undue pressure on the U.S. economy while it is unable to rehabilitate prisoners. In the U.S., about 47% of incarcerations are drug-related. Nonetheless, it is observed that most prisoners live incarceration worse than they entered. The issue of incarceration and racial inequality is also at the front line in the legal system’s ethical violation. In education, policies favoring the white and creating limitations for the minority populations are prevalent. In this regard, racial minorities are constantly subject to unfair hearings, making them populate prisons. Therefore, the U.S. legal system is seen to be unjust in terms of race. Simultaneously, its ability to rehabilitate offenders remains questionable due to the high associated costs and poor outcomes.
The prevalent issue with the justice and legal system in the U.S. is its impact on rehabilitating offenders. Assumedly, a county like the U.S. with the highest incarceration rate would have lower crime levels and the best rehabilitation systems. However, the situation in the U.S. population is significantly insecure. The federal government used $81 billion of taxpayer’s money in correctional supervision in 2016. Still, human rights groups reported that the incarceration was unsuccessful since most of the prisoners left worse than they had entered. Furthermore, racial inequality was prevalent in how arrests were made and rulings made (Pettit, Becky, and Gutierrez 1154). In the education sector, there is evidence of white supremacy whereby the system provides opportunities for white people while the people of color are subjected to hardship before they can access the same level of education. Racism in education is identified in the access of facilities such as schools as well as the delivery of syllabus content (Malsbary 375). Therefore, ineffective rehabilitation and racial prejudice are the major issues associated with the U.S. legal and justice systems as well as the education sector.
The public is most likely to initiate the changes they want in the legal and justice system. The public can achieve the changes they need at the community and society levels. The federal and state governments have often been condemned for undermining certain groups’ rights and freedoms in society. In this regard, the African American and Latino population can benefit from a policy that gives them at least some power to decide who gets arrested and the reasons warranting an arrest (Pettit, Becky, and Gutierrez 1154). In this new policy, the government would initiate a program whereby the community reviews the nature of crime in their locality and has a voice on each offense’s appropriate punishment. However, such a policy would need federal approval and would work in stages to determine its effectiveness. The American minority communities would be willing to participate in such a policy in which their opinions matter instead of the current situation in which the communities constantly feel targeted and vulnerable to police brutality and undeserving convictions.
The proposed policy would reduce the inequalities between the minority races and the white population in the justice and legal systems. The policy’s long-term goal would be to create a racial balance in incarceration and increase rehabilitation efficiency. Regarding education, the policy will enable the citizens to choose the schools that are built in their locality as well as administration duties such as syllabus evaluations. The current situation in the U.S. justice and legal system depicts racial prejudice, which is being furthered by the federal government’s policies. Therefore, it is imperative to have more public participation in policy making for the legal and education sectors.
Works cited
Malsbary, Christine. ““Will this hell never end?”: Substantiating and resisting race‐language policies in a multilingual high school.” Anthropology & Education Quarterly vol. 45, No. 4, (2014): pp. 373-390.
Pettit, Becky, and Carmen Gutierrez. “Mass Incarceration And Racial Inequality.” American Journal Of Economics And Sociology, vol 77, no. 3-4, 2018, pp. 1153-1182. Wiley, doi:10.1111/ajes.12241.
