Last Tuesday, Hewitt’s Student Service Board met with a Hewitt parent, Michaela Soyer, to discuss incarceration in America and its impact on children. Ms. Soyer is a sociologist at Hunter College; she studies criminology and incarceration, with a specific focus on juveniles serving adult sentences. She informed the Service Board on statistics regarding incarceration such as the percentages of different races represented in prison as well as the types of crimes that women typically commit versus the types of crimes that men typically commit. Ms.Soyer then described how “the criminal justice system breaks down according to race.” Lastly, she spoke about prison reform and why America has the highest incarceration rate in the world.
Ms. Soyer explained that one reason the U.S. has a higher rate of incarceration than any other country in the world is because of the spike in crime in the 1980s due to crack cocaine and a backlash in legislation. America is “institutionalizing the population” by giving extremely long sentences, and not having enough services available for people once they are released from prison. Cara S. 18’ says, “I was shocked to hear that if someone has committed a felony, they are not allowed to vote; I was unaware of that.” Ms.Soyer told members of the Service Board that this disenfranchises a significant part of society. In addition, she also explained the difference between prison and jail: jail has much less oversight and less regulation than prison which makes it more dangerous.
The Board also learned that 60% of incarcerated women are mothers. Having a mother that is in prison causes more distress for children than if a father were in prison because most of the time, when a father is incarcerated, he is either out of the child’s life or is not the primary parent of the child. According to Ms.Soyer, men are more likely to be incarcerated than women.
Source: Taylor S. ’18
If you want to learn more about Incarceration in America, here are a few links:
https://www.prisonpolicy.org/reports/pie2016.html
http://www.naacp.org/criminal-justice-fact-sheet/