Coming into this course, I knew a little bit about imprisonment in the United States. One thing I knew was that the United States had a particularly high rate of imprisonment among other countries. Most of my knowledge came from what I had recently heard in the news. For instance, as President Barack Obama’s second term came to an end in January 2017, he commuted the sentences of hundreds of nonviolent drug offenders, a move that received a lot of attention from the media. This news story made me aware that there were many people locked up in prisons who probably did not deserve to be incarcerated. However, this week’s material made me realize that the problem is much more extensive than I had previously believed. The statistics from the YouTube video were particularly effective for reinforcing my previously-held belief that there are currently too many people being held in the United States. Particularly shocking were the statistics that 41 percent of Americans are arrested by the time they turn 23 years old, and that the United States has a larger prison population than both Russia and North Korea (“Mass Incarceration in the US”).
Having listened to the news, I also knew a little bit about the politics related to being “tough on crime.” For instance, I knew that both the Democratic and Republican parties have been supportive of the “tough on crime” stance in the past, because it became a political issue in the 2016 presidential election campaign, when Hillary Clinton was criticized by the Black Lives Matter movement for some of the “tough on crime” statements she had made in the 1990’s. I also knew that there had been some efforts over the course of the Obama presidency that had improved the imprisonment situation in the United States, which the video acknowledges. However, the video struck an optimistic tone at the end about having a “long way to go,” (“Mass Incarceration in the US”), but this was not consistent with my understanding of the political future of mass incarceration in the United States. This inconsistency is likely a result of the fact that the film was posted over three years ago. I recently heard on the news that the new U.S. Attorney General, Jeff Sessions, plans to reinvigorate the “war on drugs” by imposing harsher drug sentences. Therefore, watching the video did not convince me that the problem of mass incarceration is currently being adequately addressed by American leaders.
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However, coming into the course, I was not aware of the potential for community corrections to help address the problem of mass incarceration. Since most of what I knew about mass incarceration came from political news stories, this week’s material challenged my understanding of the ways that the system could be changed. Specifically, the reading pointed out how smaller, locally-based programs could help address the issue of mass incarceration. I had previously assumed that only the actions of high-level officials, like the president and the U.S. Attorney General, could really make a difference in addressing the problem of mass incarceration. However, I was intrigued by the options of implementing local strategies, like harness technology and electronic monitoring, as solutions for addressing crime, as well as the potential effectiveness of science-based intervention programs (One in 31). Given that political leaders at the highest levels seem like they may exacerbate the mass incarceration problem rather than improve it, I hope that these kinds of programs can be implemented at lower levels.
Finally, this week’s materials raised my attention about the many problems that former criminals face when they get out of prison. While I had heard that it was hard for criminals to reintegrate into regular society, I did not realize that they were facing so many barriers to success. Learning more about the issue significantly reinforced my belief that the problem of mass incarceration needs to be addressed, through a combination of repealing damaging laws and setting up support systems for former prisoners so that they can contribute to society after they have served out their sentences and are not endlessly punished for their crimes.
