Impacts of Incarceration - Essay Example

Impacts of Incarceration Impacts of Incarceration Introduction The rate at which people are being incarcerated in the United sof America has been on the increase. However, the majority of the people incarcerated are from the poor neighborhood. The high level of incarcerations has raised a lot of concern in the media and among different stakeholders (Bales & Piquero, 2012). The family set up as well as that of the community is undergoing a lot of changes when their members are incarcerated. The paper thus discusses the impacts of incarceration on the individual families and communities.

Analysis Incarceration has a negative impact on individual families as they end up suffering just like their member who has been incarcerated. The individual families usually undergo a lot of hardship as it may lead to the loss of income. When the bread winner of the family is incarcerated, the individual family usually ends up losing their income and hence creating financial difficulties. The relationship between the family members and the incarcerated individual is also eroded as they may be unable to visit the member due to various reasons including the financial difficulties.

The composition of the house hold is usually restructured forcibly due to the incarceration of a family member. For example, the wives have to play all the roles in the family when their husbands are incarcerated. On the other hand, the fathers have to play all the family roles when their wives are incarcerated. This trend is increasingly becoming common among the poor black neighborhoods where the levels of incarceration are high as noted by the US Department of Justice (Liebling & Maruna, 2013).

The individual families usually face a lot of stigma as they are associated with the crime. This leads to more difficulties with most of the families becoming isolated. This causes a lot of stress and pain to the individual families. According to the media reports, the prison population in the United States of America has undergone tremendous growth in the last 35 years. The high number of population in the prisons has affected the community. Mass incarceration of members of a particular community usually leads to the weakening of the labour market within the community as people with different expertise in the community are in prison.

The rate of marriage has also been seen to reduce among the African Americans in the United States of America due to the high number of incarceration of the community members (Schnittker, et al, 2011). The health outcomes of the community are usually impacted negatively and a high rate of sexually transmitted diseases has been noted in the communities where a large number of its members have been incarcerated. High levels of crime have also been witnessed in the communities where the number of community members who have been incarcerated is high.

The criminal justice system therefore requires reforms in order to combat the problem and avoid problems facing the community and individual families. On the other hand, community level projects should be implemented to reduce crimes that lead to the mass incarceration of the community members.Conclusion In conclusion, it is evident that the incarceration has negative impacts on the individual families as well as the community as a whole. The productivity of the community is affected by incarceration of a high number of its members.

It is evident that reforms are needed in the justice system to combat the problem.ReferencesBales, W. D., & Piquero, A. R. (2012). Assessing the impact of imprisonment on recidivism. Journal of Experimental Criminology, 8(1), 71-101.Liebling, A., & Maruna, S. (2013). The effects of imprisonment. Routledge.Schnittker, J. et al. (2011). Incarceration and the health of the African American community. Du Bois Review: Social Science Research on Race, 8(01), 133-141.