Incarceration & healthcare
Racism
Black people make up nearly 40% of the US prison population but only 13% of the general US population
One thing that really unsettled me was the sentencing project finding that of people born in 2001, 1 in 3 black men will be incarcerated in their lifetime, while it's 1 in 17 for white men. There is so much racial bias from sentencing, to arrests that it almost doesn't feel fair. There's studies that discuss how there have been several accounts of black men on death row executed and were later found innocent but the fact that that's even a thing is terrifying
Private prison system
Healthcare/ health disparities
Human rights
Of the total jail population, the majority are in jail awaiting trial without actually being charged, only indicted.
There's also a large amount of prisoners facing lifetime sentences for non-violent drug crimes, and Black people are 2x more likely than white people to have a lifelong non-violent drug charge
There's also 36,000 kids in incarceration, and 32,000 in immigration detention which is seriously concerning
While the concept of incarceration typically includes rehabilitation to return to society, I don't feel like that is present in our prison system. In a prison state where people don't get basic healthcare, medical attention, or proper exposure to outside, I don't see how anyone could rehabilitate and considering most inmates who are released will reoffend, it makes sense given that they can't adjust back
For 70 years, female prisoners were subject to forced sterilization unwillingly, which is a human rights violation beyond what could even be considered reasonable
20% of Americans with serious mental illness (SMI) make up the US prison population, which partially is due to law enforcement typically handling mental health crises despite not being qualified to do so. Many people suffering from SMI who commit crime also don't receive enough care incarcerated and are more likely to spend more time in solitary confinement
There's also high chances of developing mental illness and psychosis when put in solitary confinement. The deprivation of contact is debilitating for humans and worsens a prisoners chance of rehabilitating back to normal
During Covid, most prisoners were forced to stay inside during all of lockdown with months of no outdoor exposure, which led to increased covid outbreaks in prison, fights, and even death by suicide for some prisoners
One thing I want to know is how many years of life are lost per years of being incarcerated?
116,000 prisons are privately owned between federal and state prisons, which accounts for 8% of total prisons
Some problems with private prisons is it is run on capitalism and there's less governmental regulation which means prisoners I n these facilities can be subject to way more inhumane conditions than regular prisons that are federally owned
One issue too is the abuse of labor. In private prisons, prisoners have been firefighters for wildfire, grown and farmed produce, made clothing, and so much more labor for usually less than a dollar a day
Modern day slavery exists within the prison system and continues to incarcerate a disproportionate amount of black and brown people for minor crimes while white people may just get a citation. With phones and technology showing these injustices more widely, I fear for my safety even being pulled over because law enforcement can take this movement of justice as a personal attack and it stresses me out to even think about
What a lot of people don't realize about law enforcement either is their sole creation was based on capturing runaway slaves during the Underground Railroad and civil war, so most of these statistics and readings about racism in incarceration are sickening but not surprising to me