The Criminal Justice System and Mass Incarceration in the U.S.A.

Vocabulary flashcards about the US Criminal Justice system and mass incarceration.

Just Mercy

A story of justice and redemption

Walter McMillan

Death row inmate for the murder of a young white woman in 1986 in Monroeville, Alabama.

Sheriff Tom Tate

Sheriff who arranged for Mr. McMillan to be placed on death row before his trial.

Bryan Stevenson

American lawyer, social justice activist, and law professor at New York University School of Law.

Bryan Stevenson

Founder of the Equal Justice Initiative.

Incarceration

A popular crime control strategy in the USA

Mass Incarceration

The United States has more people in prison than any country in the world.

War on Drugs

Accounts for much of the disparity in incarceration rates between the U.S. and other developed countries.

Mass Incarceration: The New Jim Crow

The penal system that confers stigma on ex-prisoners and reduces their readiness for the job market.

High Incarceration Rate

The societal attitude that criminals should be removed from society and punished.

Negative Credential

Ex-prisoners difficulty finding work after release.

Mid-twentieth century America view on incarceration

When prison was seen as a last resort.

Higher

The incarceration rate of the U.S. compared to other Western European countries.

Drug Offenders

Represents the most substantial source of growth in incarceration in recent decades.

80%

The percentage of drug arrests that were for drug possession in 2005.

California

States that greatly increased the number of people they sent to prison between 1998-2003.

Incarceration

Rates that have gone up even as crime rates have decreased.

Race and Mass Incarceration

Racial disparity in the criminal justice system.

487 per every 100,000

The imprisonment rate of white males in 2009.

3,110 per 100,000

The imprisonment rate of black males in 2009.

Incarceration and Gender

Incarceration is a relatively new phenomenon.

Mass incarceration

Civil rights issue of the twenty-first century.

Phenomenological Qualitative Research

A means of research that involves face-to-face interviews with incarcerated mothers and children with incarcerated parents.

Qualitative Approach

The impact of mass incarceration on families.

Mental Health

Problems that children with incarcerated parents are found to suffer.

Mass incarceration

Criminal justice issue that affects the 2 million people behind bars and the 7 million people under criminal justice supervision.

Diminishing returns from incarceration

Incarcerating nonviolent offenders.

Profit and Punishment

Book about the poverty penalty.

Misdemeanors

The type of crime that constitutes about 80% of cases in the court system.

Pay-to-stay-bill

Charges people for time served.

Philando Castile

32-year-old African American man, fatally shot during a traffic stop by police in St. Paul, Minneapolis in 2016.

Messenger in Chapter 1 focuses on…

The Arrest

Oklahoma

The state where Killman was arrested for possession of drug paraphernalia and marijuana.

Deferred

The legal term for when a defendant won’t go to jail as long as they don’t violate the terms of their probations.

Cycle of poverty

Term referring to financial, psychological, personal, societal, past and present.

Cases that clog the American courts

Traffic tickets, theft, bar fights, minor indiscretions.

Prison in Germany and the Netherlands

European countries that incarcerate people at about one-tenth rate of the United States.

Global view

Focus on social reintegration-not punishment.

Global view in prison systems

The belief that incarceration is a last resort.

Punishments

Community service, fines, diversion programs.