Question

The United States has the highest incarceration rate in the world, putting more people per capita behind bars than any other nation. What factors, do you think, have led to such high rates of formal social control? Are programs such as mandatory minimum sentences and “three strikes” laws likely to lower crime rates? What are the racial, ethnic, class, and gendered implications of this nation’s strict sentencing norms?

Answer 1

American society is already struggling to overcome its institutional racism which systematically neglect people of color from education, employment, housing medicine etc. thus still remaining a racist country. This means the law makers who are majority whites would try to brand the behaviors of other races as deviant making room for criminal justice system to throw more people of color thrown into jail. Social inequality has already contributed to the decline of economic status of most of the people of color leading them to engage in petty crimes to survive in the society. Strict laws such as the fight against drugs target more African American men while the same or more amount of white people use drugs without being sent to jail. Mandatory minimum sentence and the three strikes law that target frequent offenders wouldn’t reduce crime until social equality is achieved. It’s time the government and the American society as a whole wake up and address the inequalities and issues caused by more individual freedom and the broken family system in order prevent more crimes from occurring in the future.

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