United States Prisons: The Real Issue

United States Prisons: The Real Issue

There is a major issue in America that is rarely published or known in America that pertains to millions of people. The Prison-Industrial Complex and United States International Prisons are something that should not be ignored. Concerns relating to gender, race, ethnicity, labor, and treatment are significant problems that have not been adequately addressed. The United States incarcerates more people than any country in the world and increases prison capacities every year. Prisons are used as a solution to reduce crime in America but as time has passed, the situation has further deteriorated. The Prison-Industrial Complex has many social and institutional problems that need to be reformed in order to resolve this continuing problem.

Understanding how vast the Prison-Industrial Complex can be realized in recent research statistics. Extensive independent questioning of prisons of late has brought the attention of federal and non-government agencies to reassess the Prison-Industrial Complex. As of 2005, there are over 2.2 million people in American prisons. The Department of Justice reported seven million people, one in every 32 adults, was either in jail, on probation, or on parole by the end of 2005 (Colson, 5). This is an outstanding number of incarcerated people compared to other countries around the world and the rate at which prisons have grown is amazing. Since 1973, the prison population has grown 700 percent, or ten fold (Colson, 6). Half the people are sentenced to prison for non-violent crimes, mainly attributed to the "War on Drugs" with mandatory-minimum sentencing laws. Another 200,000 to 300,000 prisoners suffer from mental disorders (NPR).

In order to sustain these large numbers of inmates, funding and budget costs have to increase. Since 1984 more than twenty prisons have been created in California alone. This is outstanding because the state has only added one new University campus, in addition higher education has received a smaller percentage of California's General Fund while the corrections budget has increased (Schlosser, 12). As a nation, the Prison-Industrial Complex costs are rising over sixty billion dollars a year. With the tremendous increases in inmates and corrections budget, a change to the prison system is a necessity.

The Prison-Industrial Complex is vast and incorporates many different types of people. Although laws and amendments have been established to end segregation, profiling, and discrimination, this is untrue for America's prisons. A majority of convicts and inmates are people of color. In particular, African Americans and Latinos have fallen victim to this institutional racism. African Americans and Latinos constitute sixty percent of United State prisons and a total of seventy percent are people of color (Mathis, 1). These figures show the racial discrimination that prisons employ in our society. African Americans are targets to this institutional racism. Over forty percent of all inmates are African American which is three times larger than their proportion in the United States population (Davis, 2).

The problem with this, is that government policy has shifted from social welfare to crime control, allowing racism to severely percolate into the economic and ideological structures of America. Many of these crimes are non-violent and proceed on drug offenses that occur in inner-cities that are highly populated with minorities and are of lower social class. At this rate, one out of every three African Americans and one of every six Latino men born in the United States will go to prison at some point in their lifetime (Davis, 2). This statistic is unbelievable and cannot be justified. The social problems with America are predominating in the justice and correction system.

The massive numbers of citizens incarcerated and notions of racism are overwhelming arguments against American prisons but gender is an issue that is often overlooked. Over the last fifteen years, the number of women in prisons has risen by 873 percent (Leon, 78). This is unprecedented growth. For anything to rise by such a significant number is astonishing. Going from 12,300 inmates to over 107,500 is exponential crime growth, which a large portion is African American (Leon, 78). The amount of women sentenced to prison every year grows. Many of these women either are pregnant or bear the burden of children that now grow in unstable housing. The idea of wedlock is created from these families yet nothing is done to solve the pragmatic crisis. Increasing population of incarcerated women has to be recognized because it is destroying families and communities.

An issue that is often in the Prison-Industrial Complex is the health care of prison inmates. There is currently an issue with health care for the general public of America and consequently the health of prison inmates is immediately an insignificant concern. Generally there is one doctor for thousands of inmates resulting in a reduction in standards of medical assistance. There are currently 43% of prisons and 4% of jails are a credited in adequate health care (U.S. Prison Watch). This is terrible because while there are millions of incarcerated people in the prison system there are hardly any doctors to assist inmates and guards. In addition more than 300,000 inmates suffer from mental illnesses and an estimated 70% of the entire prison populations are substance abusers (U.S. Prison Watch). There are not enough rehabilitation programs in prisons to help rehabilitate people that suffer from illnesses or addictions. As a consequence these inmates problem will only further deteriorate if changes are not made for prison health care.

With an outstanding number of people being sent to prisons, inmates are now exploited for labor. There are private companies that build and facilitate prisons that generate enormous profits. The Corrections Corporation of America (CCA) and Wackenhut Correction Corporation (WCC) administer