Today’s Topic: Policing & Mass Incarceration, Part I
Mass incarceration is the current American experiment in incarceration, which is defined by comparatively and historically extreme rates of imprisonment.
Option #1: Read & Reflect: The United States is the world’s leader in incarceration. There are 2.2 million people in the nation’s prisons and jails—a 500% increase over the last 40 years. Changes in law and policy, not changes in crime rates, explain most of this increase. The results are overcrowding in prisons and fiscal burdens on states, despite increasing evidence that large-scale incarceration is not an effective means of achieving public safety. (Source: The Sentencing Project)
What struck you most about what you just read?
How does your experience, and those of your family & friends, compare to what you read?
Option #2: Read & Reflect: People of color make up 37% of the U.S. population but 67% of the prison population. Overall, African Americans are more likely than white Americans to be arrested; once arrested, they are more likely to be convicted; and once convicted, they are more likely to face stiff sentences. Black men are six times as likely to be incarcerated as white men and Hispanic men are more than twice as likely to be incarcerated as non-Hispanic white men. (Source: The Sentencing Project)
What are ways we can support reform within the prison system while still ensuring justice?
Families: Write short prayer intentions for each the following and then pray them together as a family.
-The spiritual needs of the prisoner
-Emotional needs of children who have a loved one in prison
-The children’s caregivers
-Relationships within families who have a loved one in prison
-Protection of the rights of prisoners and their families
Additional Resources:
Mass Incarceration, Visualized by the Atlantic. In this animated interview, the sociologist Bruce Western explains the current inevitability of prison for certain demographics of young black men and how it's become a normal life event
13th Documentary on Netflix In this thought-provoking documentary, scholars, activists and politicians analyze the criminalization of African Americans and the U.S. prison boom.
Criminal Justice Reform by Southern Poverty Law