Black women
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See also: Incarceration of women in the United States
Violent crime rates by gender in the U.S. from 1973 to 2003.
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.[223] 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".[224]
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.[224] 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.[225]
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 American juvenile justice system. According to a study by Victor Rios, 75% of prison inmates in the United States are Black and Latinos between the ages of 20 and 39.[226] Rios further argued that, societal institutions – such as schools, families, and community centers can impact youth by initiating them into this "system of criminalization" from an early age. Rios argues that these institutions, which are traditionally set up to protect the youth, contribute to mass incarceration by mimicking the criminal justice system.[226]
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.[227] 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.[228] 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.[220]
Having parents in prison can have adverse psychological effects as children are deprived of parental guidance, emotional support, and financial help.[220] 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".[210] 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.[210]
Post release
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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. They also tend to come from disadvantaged communities as well and due to the lack of resources, these same men will continue along this perpetuating cycle.[210][229]
A major challenge for prisoners re-entering society is obtaining employment, especially for individuals with a felony on their record. A study utilizing U.S. Census occupational data in New Jersey and Minnesota in 2000 found that "individuals with felon status would have been disqualified from approximately one out of every 6.5 occupations in New Jersey and one out of every 8.5 positions in Minnesota".[230] It has also been argued that combination of race and criminal status of an individual will diminish the positive aspects of an individual and intensify stereotypes. From the viewpoint of employers, the racial stereotypes will be confirmed and encourage discrimination in the hiring process.[231] As African Americans and Hispanics are disproportionately affected by felon status, these additional limitations on employment opportunity were shown to exacerbate racial disparities in the labor market.
Calls for reform
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There have been minor adjustments to reduce the incarceration rate in the United States on the state level. Some of these efforts include introducing Proposition 47 in 2014, which reclassified specific property and drug crimes, and the Rockefeller drug laws in 2009, which pressed extreme minimum sentences for minor drug offenses. According to The Sentencing Project, there can be other alterations made to lower the incarceration rate. Some changes include reducing the length of some sentences, making resources such as treatment for substance abuse available to all and investing in organizations that promote strong youth development.[citation needed]