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Mass Incarceration on Joe Martinez Parable
While people from the generation today are brought up to grow morally and avoid being jailed either for violent crimes, drug crimes or any other crimes, the United States of America seem to benefit more from the few who find it hard to abandon the wrongful ways. According to statistics conducted some years back while 5% of the people in the world are in prison, America constitutes 25% of them, this number has increased from 300,000 to 2 million in the last 30 years and only seems as rising (Wagner, and Rabuy). Various projections have tried to be used to explain this rise with more focus being on the new policies that are instituted by the government and the relies on punishment to deter crimes. The incarceration of these many prisoners in the federal, state and local jails is what scholars claim as mass incarceration and is dependent on the racial biases in the society today. The discussion below will focus on the goals of this influx of people in the jails while relating it to the Parable of Joe Martinez.
Firstly, this parable was published in 1970 and had been written by a black prisoner according to the Black Voices in prison, the author in his work seem to explain the role of the prison system and its effects on the victims. In the beginning, we see the convict having to choose among 7 doors including therapist, doctor, chaplain, correction, parole, counselor and teacher, he chooses correction. Evidently from his choice the convict depicts his willingness to reform his ways and undergo punishment to have a clean slate, this is the goal of mass incarceration to punish people for the crimes by sending them to jail and correctional centers. After the convict finds two doors, custody and treatment and he picks treatment this also tries to explain the convict might have been sent to prison after being convicted of drug-related charges or the fact that he as an individual had always struggled with a drug problem hence he was seeking rehabilitation. Additionally, about mass incarceration, most people who are in the state and local jails have been convicted of drug-related charges and their stay in prison is usually to rehabilitate them while keeping them from using drugs.
After picking the treatment door, the convict then has to choose between the juvenile and adult door where we are told he picked the proper one, the lack of specification show the fault in the prison system wherein some circumstances one is convicted as a juvenile but tried as an adult. The distinction arises across people of different racial origins where a juvenile from the minority will be convicted as a juvenile but tried as an adult yet it rarely happens with the majority. The objective while shedding on the mass interstation originates from the fact that most people in the system are the blacks and they are usually considered more dangerous than the whites and also because for adults it is considered as a punishment which is their goal and rehabilitation for the juveniles. Moreover, the convict then chooses between the previous offender and first offender, there is no definite pick and it is because the situations are treated differently across people and circumstances. In any case, one’s priors matters and one is bound to receive more punishment when he is found to be a convicted felon than one who has no prior and in some situation, one with prior can be punished more than one with priors (Schoenfeld).
Additionally, the convict goes ahead and picks between a democratic and republican door, he picks a democrat which is often associated with the black. Unfortunately, most blacks affiliate themselves with Democratic since they endured slavery during the republican reign and only received some relief only during the New deal. Shedding light on the goal of mass incarceration most policies that have been formed that have led to this issue have been constituted while the people holding the positions are affiliated with being republican. Finally, the last door the convict had to choose from was either black or white and since we have been told by the author that he was black he picked it, unfortunately, he fell nine stories to the street. The scenario is symbolic since he was black and at the end of making so many decisions, he falls which means he just went back to the same trend. While reflecting this with the objective of mass incarceration, its main objective is usually punishment and not rehabilitation hence the same people in the system at the end of the day nothing changes in their life but they go back to the same ways (Schoenfeld).
Overall, while reflecting on the goal of mass incarceration while basing it on the Martinez parable, these prisoners once they are convicted they are usually ready to reform their ways but the decision they have to make, the discrimination and the inadequacies of the prison life at the end of the day fails to achieve its purpose. These inadequacies of the system, in turn, lead to the same prisoners being convicted again making the system a cycle instead of a turning point for them. Unfortunately, they are little to be done until the system itself is fixed to ensure that prisoners in jail not only are punished but at the end of the day, they are rehabilitated emerging better.
Works Sited
Schoenfeld, Heather. Mass Incarceration And The Paradox Of Prison Conditions Litigation. Law And Society Association, 2010, pp. 1-38, https://s3.amazonaws.com/academia.edu.documents. Accessed 19 Feb 2020.
Wagner, Peter, and Bernadette Rabuy. Mass Incarceration: The Whole Pie 2017. 2017, pp. 1-23, http://www.antoniocasella.eu/nume/Wagner_Rabuy_14mar17.pdf. Accessed 19 Feb 2020.
