Is prison contagious?

Incarceration in the United States is frequently described as an epidemic, with per capita rates nearly quadrupling in the past 30 years. African-Americans appear to be particularly susceptible: In 2011, they were six times more likely than whites to be incarcerated, making up 38% of the 1.6 million Americans behind bars while accounting for only 13% of the U.S. population. Now, a computer simulation originally developed to track infectious disease suggests the longer prison sentences that blacks often receive may accelerate the rate of “infection.”

Social scientists have long observed that imprisonment behaves like a contagious disease, says Kristian Lum, a statistician at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University in Blacksburg. Studies show that those close to an incarcerated person are more likely to become imprisoned themselves. They could be driven to crime by poverty or stress resulting from the jailed person's absence, or become inured to violence through more frequent exposure to criminals. Children whose parents or older relatives are in prison may act out in ways that land them in jail, too. Even if the prisoner's friends and family don't commit more crime, or more violent types of crime, they may attract more attention from the police and be more likely to be arrested for minor infractions.

To find out what makes imprisonment more transmissible among blacks than whites, Lum and her colleagues turned to the world of infectious disease, repurposing a computer simulation used in epidemiology to predict how an epidemic of imprisonment might develop. When a disease changes from just something that's going around to a true epidemic, there's usually a tipping point, Lum explains. For example, the sick people may come into close contact with others who are extremely vulnerable -- the elderly, young children, or those who have never been exposed to the infection before. With incarceration, the researchers suspected one such tipping point might be the longer sentences typically given to black offenders.

Incarceration equals the period of contagion, Lum explains. "The longer you're imprisoned, the higher the toll your incarceration takes on your family and friends, and the more likely they are to ‘catch’ your incarceration from you." Sentencing discrepancies are not huge, she notes. For drug possession, according to the U.S. Department of Justice, whites are given an average sentence of about 14 months, whereas black Americans typically get about 17 months for the same offense. Still, the researchers thought the difference might be just enough to tip a problem into an epidemic.



http://news.sciencemag.org/biology/2014/06/prison-contagious?rss=1


Very interesting and well worth the read, lots more to read as well.

i think its pretty self explanatory

"African-Americans appear to be particularly susceptible: In 2011, they were six times more likely than whites to be incarcerated, making up 38% of the 1.6 million Americans behind bars while accounting for only 13% of the U.S. population."

smelly_bandit wrote:i think its pretty self explanatory

"African-Americans appear to be particularly susceptible: In 2011, they were six times more likely than whites to be incarcerated, making up 38% of the 1.6 million Americans behind bars while accounting for only 13% of the U.S. population."

No it shows you are a fuckwit, but thanks for proving that you cannot read

smelly_bandit wrote:i think its pretty self explanatory

"African-Americans appear to be particularly susceptible: In 2011, they were six times more likely than whites to be incarcerated, making up 38% of the 1.6 million Americans behind bars while accounting for only 13% of the U.S. population."

Justice Fact Sheet

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Incarceration Trends in America

   From 1980 to 2008, the number of people incarcerated in America quadrupled-from roughly 500,000 to 2.3 million people
   Today, the US is 5% of the World population and has 25% of world prisoners.
   Combining the number of people in prison and jail with those under parole or probation supervision, 1 in ever y 31 adults, or 3.2 percent of the population is under some form of correctional control

Racial Disparities in Incarceration

   African Americans now constitute nearly 1 million of the total 2.3 million incarcerated population
   African Americans are incarcerated at nearly six times the rate of whites
   Together, African American and Hispanics comprised 58% of all prisoners in 2008, even though African Americans and Hispanics make up approximately one quarter of the US population
   According to Unlocking America, if African American and Hispanics were incarcerated at the same rates of whites, today's prison and jail populations would decline by approximately 50%
   One in six black men had been incarcerated as of 2001. If current trends continue, one in three black males born today can expect to spend time in prison during his lifetime
   1 in 100 African American women are in prison
   Nationwide, African-Americans represent 26% of juvenile arrests, 44% of youth who are detained, 46% of the youth who are judicially waived to criminal court, and 58% of the youth admitted to state prisons (Center on Juvenile and Criminal Justice).

Drug Sentencing Disparities

   About 14 million Whites and 2.6 million African Americans report using an illicit drug
   5 times as many Whites are using drugs as African Americans, yet African Americans are sent to prison for drug offenses at 10 times the rate of Whites
   African Americans represent 12% of the total population of drug users, but 38% of those arrested for drug offenses, and 59% of those in state prison for a drug offense.
   African Americans serve virtually as much time in prison for a drug offense (58.7 months) as whites do for a violent offense (61.7 months). (Sentencing Project)

Contributing Factors

   Inner city crime prompted by social and economic isolation
   Crime/drug arrest rates: African Americans represent 12% of monthly drug users, but comprise 32% of persons arrested for drug possession
   "Get tough on crime" and "war on drugs" policies
   Mandatory minimum sentencing, especially disparities in sentencing for crack and powder cocaine possession
   In 2002, blacks constituted more than 80% of the people sentenced under the federal crack cocaine laws and served substantially more time in prison for drug offenses than did whites, despite that fact that more than 2/3 of crack cocaine users in the U.S. are white or Hispanic
   "Three Strikes"/habitual offender policies
   Zero Tolerance policies as a result of perceived problems of school violence; adverse affect on black children.
   35% of black children grades 7-12 have been suspended or expelled at some point in their school careers compared to 20% of Hispanics and 15% of whites

Effects of Incarceration

   Jail reduces work time of young people over the next decade by 25-30 percent when compared with arrested youths who were not incarcerated
   Jails and prisons are recognized as settings where society's infectious diseases are highly concentrated
   Prison has not been proven as a rehabilitation for behavior, as two-thirds of prisoners will reoffend

Exorbitant Cost of Incarceration: Is it Worth It?

   About $70 billion dollars are spent on corrections yearly
   Prisons and jails consume a growing portion of the nearly $200 billion we spend annually on public safety