Race to Incarcerate

I have already read a very thought-provoking book, which impressed me deeply by its deep ideas. The book draws our attention to the fact that imprisonment has become one of the major methods of punishment for the commitment of serious crimes. Is it good or bad? The answer is very controversial. We live in a well-developed society, where there are a lot of tempting things. Many people choose the right way of life and some people tempt to do something bad, the punishment for which is very severe. When reading this book, a number of interesting questions arose, such as: Is it the right thing to incarcerate people as soon as they do something negative?, Will it contribute to the improvement of their behavior?, Are there any other methods that will help to decrease the number of crimes?, and many others.People are social beings, the nature of which is very controversial, as people have both positive and negative sides. Since each society dictates different rules, each social being will be a different one, living a different life, having different features of character, having a different type of behavior, and so on and so forth. Since there are many tempting things that people have a great desire to try, there is always a possibility that people will use a chance to commit a crime in order to get the desired thing. James Q. Wilson once said: “We’re on a new higher plateau of crime, which means a new higher and, I think, permanent prison population. It is very hard for a free society to figure out how effectively to deal with crime rates other than by imprisonment” (Mauer, 2006, p. i). More and more people commit crimes in the modern world. Consequently, the role of the Government is to provide life conditions that would deprive people of the desire to do something illegal and to take measures that would prevent people from committing a crime.The book tells us much about the story of imprisonment. As a matter of fact, as there is a law there are always people who will break some laws. It goes without saying that people should be punished; otherwise, they will break laws all the time. However, the history revealed in the book tells us that previously not all people lived under equal conditions. Black and white people were of different social statuses. Black people lived poorer than white people, because they were often unemployed. Black people were characterized as “a degraded and depressed race” (Mauer, 2006, p. 4). White people, however, were of a higher social status: they had well-paid jobs; they were respected by people, and so on and so forth. As a result, black people committed more crimes in order to earn for living and in order to fight for their rights. More than that, despite the fact that laws were the same for both white and black people, black people felt the humiliation and punishment more often. In the 1990s, a new law …