Week 9: Prison Populations Depending on Backgrounds

The prison system in the United States is unlike many other countries around the world. In the United States each state has different rules and laws set up from prisoners and the prison system in that state as a whole. While in one state a crime that is committed might be a misdemeanor, and in another it could be a felony, because of this different states have different prison rates, and different types of prisoners. In the United States most of the prisoners in jail are those who are booked for misdemeanors, and no violent crimes. With this being the case those who are incarcerated are there for not necessarily a long time, but are taking up space in jail, causing the United States to have an increasingly high prison rate and be over crowded.

Certain regions of the United States have a higher percentage of prisoners of a certain race or ethnic background then another area. The type of prisoner that a jail has has many factors that depend on it. In the southern part of the United States in some areas there is a problem of a never ending cycle or parents and then their children going to jail. In some of the rural areas in the south, there is a problem with illiteracy. When children who either had parent that was incarcerated or is currently in jail, suffer from only one parent or no parental figure they themselves have a higher chance of heading down the same path as those before them. Unfortunately in that area Africa Americans are the ones that are mostly targeted and end up in jail based on illiteracy, education opportunities and location.

So as you can see, in America, the typical prisoner is not always so typical, and different stereotypes that have to do with race, gender, or class have a strong effect on the different prisons throughout the country.

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