Min Kim
Professor Bisschop
CJBS 415
Annotated Bibliography
3/31/2015
Mass Incarceration in the U.S Incarceration in the United States is one of the main forms of punishment within its Corrections program. The United States has the largest prison population in the world, and the second-highest per-capita incarceration rate. America has become the leading country within the globe, having a population of 7.5 million under correctional supervision. This has become a political concern of great importance and an issue that the United States has been trying to resolve. Since its official beginning in 1982, the number of Americans incarcerated for drug offenses has skyrocketed from 41,000 in 1980 to half a million in 2011. A major contribution…show more content… The War on Drugs changed American society with the massive amounts of new offenders being assimilated into the criminal justice system. This notion is important due to the understanding that these offenders, many in which were non-violent became stigmatized as criminals and received harsh sentences for their offenses. Research objectives would be to further understand how strain theory, conflict theory and labeling theory applies to this population. Inquiries such as how were they inducted into criminality, why recidivism occurred, and if the relationship between economic conditions and how mass incarceration is…show more content… The effect that labeling does to an individual may cause that person to identify him or herself with that label, ultimately behaving in the manner the label is depicted as. Historically, within the timeframe of the war on drugs, a negative stigma of drug offenders became prevalent throughout the country. The norm, became that drug offenders and drugs were evil, and so stronger enforcements must be applied towards the issue. These sociological theories can be connected with the political issue of mass incarceration and the war on drugs.
Sered, Susan and Hawk, Maureen. Can’t Catch a Break: Gender, Jail, Drugs, and the Limits of Personal Responsibility Oakland, California: University of California Press. 2014.
The main synopsis of the book is the documentation of former female inmates that were victims of sexual abuse, violent communities, ineffective social and therapeutic programs, discriminatory local and federal policies, criminalization, and incarceration. Within this source, explains the relationships between police officers and civilians, along with correctional officers along with prison inmates. Within the explanation of these relationships comes the correlation towards strain theory, and labeling theory within