User:Sorenhiatt/sandbox

The current prison complex serves as a punitive system in which mass incarceration has become the response to problems in society. Field studies regarding prison conditions describe behavioral changes produced by prolonged institutionalization, and conclude that imprisonment undermines the social life of inmates by exacerbating criminality or impairing their capacity for normal social interaction. Moreover, this racial disparity in imprisonment, particularly with African Americans, subjects them to political subordination by destroying their positive connection with society. Institutional factors – such as the prison industrial complex itself – become enmeshed in everyday lives, so much so that prisons no longer function as “law enforcement” systems. Beyond the surface of this racial inequality, evaluations of economic disparities and political pressure show how community environments also affect people’s daily lives. Mass imprisonment destroys the democratic ideals America was founded upon by repressing minority voices.

Crime in poorer urban neighborhoods is linked to increased rates of mass incarceration, as job opportunities decline and people turn to crime for survival. Crime among low-education men is often linked to the economic decline among unskilled workers. These economic problems are also tied to reentry into society after incarceration. Data from the Washington State Department of Corrections and Employment Insurance records show how “the wages of black ex-inmates grow about 21 percent more slowly each quarter after release than the wages of white ex-inmates.” Black ex-inmates earn 10 percent less than white ex-inmates post incarceration. Consistent findings of slower wage growth for blacks signal a sense of racial stigma for black ex-inmates, reflecting the criminal stereotypes of blacks. The inequality in wages of these black ex-inmates will impact family members and communities, thus, the repeating cycle of low-income results in incarceration. However, problems resulting from mass incarceration extend beyond economic and political aspects to reach community lives as well. According to the U.S. Department of Justice, 46% of black female inmates were likely to have grown up in a home with only their mothers. A study by Bresler and Lewis shows how incarcerated African American women were more likely to have been raised in a single female headed household while incarcerated white women were more likely to be raised in a two parent household. Black women’s lives are often shaped by the prison system because they have intersecting familial and community obligations. The “increase incarceration of Black men and the sex ratio imbalance it induces shape the behavior of young black women.” Education, fertility, and employment for black women are affected due to increased mass incarceration. Black women’s employment rates were increased, shown in Mechoulan’s data, due to increased education. Higher rates of black male incarceration lowered the odds of nonmarital teenage motherhood and black women’s ability to get an educational degree, thus resulting in early employment. Whether incarcerated themselves or related to someone who was incarcerated, women are often conformed into stereotypes of how they are supposed to behave yet are isolated from society at the same time. This intersectionality of race and gender plays a vital role in how African American women shape their lives around imprisonment as they face both race and gender discrimination.

Furthermore, this system can disintegrate familial life and structure. Black and Latino youth are more likely to be incarcerated after coming in contact with the juvenile justice system. In a study by Victor Rios, 75% of prison inmates in the United States are Black and Latinos between the ages of 20 and 39. Furthermore, societal institutions – such as schools, families, and community centers can impact youth by initiating them into this system of criminalization from an early age. These institutions, traditionally set up to protect the youth, contribute to mass incarceration by mimicking the criminal justice system. Juvenile detention or imprisonment leads to the disintegration of a stable family structure, as the incarcerated youth tend to be separated from their parents, leaving custody to the state. Imprisonment can undermine family life and disrupt children’s lives as they grow up, forewarning how the inequalities of mass incarceration may persist over generations.

From a different perspective, parents in prison face further moral and emotional dilemmas because they are separated from their children. Both black and white women face difficulty with where to place their children while incarcerated and how to maintain contact with them. According to the study by Bresler and Lewis, black women are more likely to leave their children with related kin whereas white women’s children are likely to be placed in foster care. In a report by the Bureau of Justice Statistics revealed how in 1999, seven percent of Black children had a parent in prison, making them nine times more likely to have an incarcerated parent than white children. Having parents in prison can have adverse psychological effects as children are deprived of parental guidance, emotional support, and financial help. Because many prisons are located in remote areas, incarcerated parents face physical barriers in seeing their children and vice versa. Societal influences, such as low education among African American men, can also lead to higher rates of incarceration. Imprisonment has become “disproportionately widespread among low-education black men” in which the penal system has evolved to be a “new feature of American race and class inequality”. Scholar Pettit and Western’s research has shown how incarceration rates for African Americans are “about eight times higher than those for whites,” and prison inmates have less than “12 years of completed schooling” on average.

These factors all impact released prisoners who try to reintegrate into society. According to a national study, within three years of release, almost 7 in 10 will have been rearrested. Many released prisoners have difficulty transitioning back into societies and communities from state and federal prisons because the social environment of peers, family, community, and state level policies all impact prison reentry; the process of leaving prison or jail and returning to society. Men eventually released from prison will most likely return to their same communities, putting additional strain on already scarce resources as they attempt to garner the assistance they need to successfully reenter society. Due to the lack of resources, these same men will continue along this perpetuating cycle.

Without change, the continual racist image of Blacks and colored minorities in ideologies, the culture, and the media upholds the racial stereotype of African Americans and other minorities. For those who were arrested to successfully reenter society, abolitionist alternatives propose that the community unlearn that all individuals arrested should be punished rather than rehabilitated. Consequential damages are those that are not a direct result of an act, but a consequence of the initial act. Through the abolition of collateral consequential laws, improvements can be made for ex-inmates to turn their lives around after their release from prison. This action will, in turn, improve the lives of families and black communities that are currently devastated by the harsh repercussions of collateral consequential laws.