User:Medium-Ferret/Incarceration of men in the US draft article

This article discusses the incarceration of men in the United States. Despite making up less than 5% of the worlds population the US almost 25% of the worlds prison population. Since the 1970s the US prison population has increased by over 700% with almost 2.3 million people incarcerated today. While the incarceration of women has risen faster than men in the same period, men continue to make up an overwhelming majority of the prison population at over 90% as of 2015 .

Useful Sources for reference:

• Prison Policy Initiative "Mass Incarceration: The Whole Pie 2020" - https://www.prisonpolicy.org/reports/pie2020.html

• "Corrections, Rehabilitation and Criminal Justice in the United States: 1970-Present" - https://corrections.eku.edu/insidelook/corrections-rehabilitation-and-criminal-justice-united-states-1970-present

Possible future sections:

• Factors contributing to mass incarceration (of males)
• Alternatives (rehabilitation, prevention)
• Effects beyond incarceration (recidivism, social effects:(unemployment, substance abuse, homelessness, etc.))

Sexual Violence

• Prevelance of Rape and Sexual Assault

- Human Rights Watch Report "No Escape, Male Rape in US Prisons" [1]

- Sexual Violence Inside Prisons: Rates of Victimization [2]

- Incarceration & social inequality [3]

Prison Rape Elimination Act of 2003

Main article: Prison Rape Elimination Act of 2003

Bias in Sentencing

Gender along with other characteristics such as race, income and citizenship have all been measured to impact sentencing, despite explicit guidelines prohibiting their consideration in the Sentencing Reform Act.

"blacks and males are also less likely to get no prison term when that option is available, less likely to receive downward departures, more likely to receive upward adjustments, and conditioned on having a downward departure, receive smaller reductions than whites and females."

"Gender- One consistent finding in the literature is that female defendants are treated more leniently than their male counterparts (see reviews in Bickle and Peterson 1991; Daly and Bordt 1995; Steffensmeier et al. 1993, 1998). There are several reasons for this. Albonetti (1991) suggested that female defendants are thought to have a lower probability of future criminal behavior, and that this works to decrease uncertainty and reduce sentence severity (254). Daly argued that male judges are more patronizing toward women defendants, and dont take seriously the crimes of women (Daly 1987). Furthermore, Steffensmeier, Kramer, and Streifel (1993) argued that previous studies have substantiated the "widely held belief that female defendants receive more lenient treatment (apparently) because of judicial paternalism, the social costs to children and families of sending women to prison, or the view that female defendants are less dangerous and more amenable to rehabilitation than male defendants" (439). Finally, Kruttschnitt and Green (1984) argued that females are insulated from harsher sanctions because their social attributes satisfy sex- role expectations (e.g., being mothers and economically dependent; possessing characteristics in accord with their conventional role). In accord with previous literature and expectations, we hypothesize that women receive less severe sanctions."

Proposals for reform

The ACLU has made several proposals to reduce mass incarceration. They criticise the cash bail system as "wealth-based incarceration". Stating that as of 2015 over 700,000 people sit in local jails, a majority of which have not been convicted of a crime. A cash bond may be unaffordable to poorer Americans while wealthier citizens can buy their freedom while awaiting trial.

Sentencing Reform

Prosecutorial Reform

See also

• Incarceration in the United States

• Incarceration of women in the United States

• Prison rape

• Prison rape in the United States

• Rape of males