In class this week it was mentioned that America has the highest rate of incarceration in the entire world. I have heard this statistic before, and have always wondered as to why this was the case. For instance, do Americans imprison so many people because they need to have a feeling of moral superiority? I read the link to an article on prisons in Professor Johnson's blog and it really raise some interesting points. For one thing, the cost of keeping one person in prison is actually more costly than one year's tuition at a state college. So, why is it that we are willing to take such a huge economic toll on our society? I believe it all just comes down to morals and control. Though many may dispute this, it is true that Americans very often stick their noses into business that really is not our own. Just look at many of the wars we have fought, loosing so many lives because we think we need to be involved in the future of another nation. Therefore, it seems that we also believe that we need to closely monitor the behavior of the citizens of this country. We put them in prisons because it is an easy fix. We lock them up far away so that people can forget about them and feel safer in their neighborhoods. But, prisons usually do not completely reform the lives of individuals. As the aforementioned article details, if a person is incarcerated once, they are likely to be imprisoned again. This is because when someone is released from prison, they still go back out into the world they came from. Poor minorities return to their urban neighborhoods, where the same bad influences are. These bad influences hold a huge influence and easily can drive someone to commit a crime again. So, it would probably make more sense to start reforming the neighborhoods of our country. If we start changing where people come from, by giving aid to those who need it, better education, and better housing, they will be perhaps less likely to end up in prison.
But, this does not solve the problem of the stereotype embedded in minority cultures. Last year in my Introduction to Sociology class, we read an article about how black school children are automatically stereotyped by school administrators. The sociologist was walking down the hall of an inner city school with the principle of it, who pointed to a boy and said, quite literally, "He will end up in jail." This shocked the sociologist and he realized that by putting labels on children as young as elementary school, they are more likely to live up to them. I think everyone can identify with the fact that, if someone calls you something for long enough, you do end up giving in and eventually being that thing, whether this change comes consciously or unconsciously. Also in the piece, they interviewed many of the black children from the school about what they would like to be when they grew up. The answers were clear; the majority of black students said that they would want to be a professional athlete. Understandably, children do sometimes form unattainable goals. But within this culture, they see their futures, even as they grow older, as being an athlete which would be a ticket out of their circumstances, or remaining there and possibly going to prison. Of course, the chance of these children actually becoming professional athletes is very slim. So, they revert back to what they know and what surrounds them.
It is clear from this example as to why so many minorities end up in prison. Not only are there racist overtones in law enforcement, but the concept of prison grows up alongside these children. Like I said before, our communities need to change in order for the prison populations to decline. But, this still does not answer the question of why America has such high rates of individuals in prison. I think that we are just incredibly insecure. We want our people to be free, yet we lock so many up. We do this because we are trying to create this image of perfect society. We do not want criminals roaming the streets near our youth. But, it is clear that even when we do remove the criminals from around the children, it still becomes a model for their future. And that, is incredibly disappointing. Do you think that prisons are a beneficial way of punishing criminals?
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