Photo by: Will Gentry
With a population of 314 million people, the United States has the highest incarceration rate in the world, outranking both China and India.
According to the Oklahoma Department of Corrections’ 2013 Annual Report, for every 100,000 people in the United States, 707 people are incarcerated. Cuba followed with 510, Russia and Mexico had 482 and 210, respectively.
“In other countries like China and Cuba, maybe they don’t consider non-violent offenses too serious – maybe that is why they have lower incarceration rates compared to the States,” junior Garrett Marshall said.
According to the International Center for Prison Studies, more than two million people in 2012 were thrown into federal, state, county and private prisons. Oklahoma, with a little less than four million people, has one of the highest female incarceration rates in the nation.
The state of Oklahoma also has some of the worst facility maintenance in the nation according to Andrew Knittle, an investigative reporter for The Oklahoman.
“State inspectors can take months to investigate complaints from the scores of city and county jails in Oklahoma, even those involving serious medical issues and allegations of unspeakable filth,” Knittle said in his article, “Oklahoma County and city jail complaints can take over a year to be looked into, records show.”
The Oklahoma Department of Corrections shows that those most likely to be repeat offenders are those who are undereducated, poor, addicted to drugs, mentally ill or people of color. All women – regardless of their ethnicity or race – have one in 56 chance of going to prison in their lifetime. However, there’s a one in 18 possibility for black women to be incarcerated, one in 45 chance for Latino women and one in 111 for white women, according to “Incarcerated Women Fact Sheet,” a study conducted by The Sentencing Project.
Between the nation and Oklahoma, there were 2,290 African Americans incarcerated (per every 100,000 Americans) – Latinos had 742 in prison and whites had 412. In Oklahoma, there were 3,252 African Americans arrests, 832 Latinos and 740 whites, according to the Oklahoma Department of Corrections.
At Oklahoma Christian University, some students asked why the state of Oklahoma leads the nation in the most females incarcerated.
“I think it’s really interesting that Oklahoma is one of the highest states with a great increase of inmates,” junior Meridith Corwin said. “I would think there would be a better solution to this problem.”
Marshall suggested that the ideal system would be one that prepares inmates for the outside world after serving time.
“I wish the prison system was a lot better,” Marshall said. “Prison itself could be reconstructed instead of being solely for punishments; it could be a training facility to prepare these people into society. Some prisons are doing this, but it is not working because most of the time after you have been in prison, your chances of going back again to do more time is greater.”
Another way to lower incarceration rates, according to Marshall, involves adjusting the state’s treatment of non-violent offenders for drug-related causes.
“People using marijuana, yeah it is against the law, but are they necessarily a high risk to society?” Marshall said. “If they are caught using drugs, they are thrown in jail for four or five years. That’s probably a broken system. In other countries punishments are different. Maybe we should do hefty fines instead of throwing in prison for non-violent offenses.”
Corwin said the church has a role to play in helping those who have served time and come from fractured families.
“The church can step in and reach out to people in broken homes,” Corwin said. “I think it is obvious in today’s society who those people are. Sometimes we just focus on other things instead of realizing that people from broken homes are just as important.”
According to Marshall, the church needs to do a better job reaching people who have served time, as well as people who are still inmates.
“The church could try harder to reach these people because I think we are kind of scared about going into those kinds of neighborhoods because they are dangerous,” Marshall said. “I feel like we should be more fearless with our attempts to people who are living with poverty and addictions.”
Corwin said the American prison system is not perfect and needs to be changed.
“I think the home is really important,” Corwin said. “It should be the basis of change and parents should teach their children to acknowledge that the system is not a very good one and we can improve it. I think the church can do a lot to improve the system too.”
College students across the nation are in a position to reach out and help people serving time or who have served time.
“University students are in unique position to do something about this problem because we can,” Marshall said. “I think people in our age are probably the ones being incarcerated because this is the area of our life when college students are starting to fall into those addictions and poverty.”
0
0
Be First to Comment