(1619 readings) Stevenson, Mass Incarceration

History 97D
(1619 readings) Stevenson, Mass Incarceration
This reading is about a young boy by the name of Matthew who has been sentenced at
the age of 16 for life in prison without parole. Some of these kids in Louisiana have been
sentenced to life at such a young age. In 2010 the supreme court made a ruling that banned
such sentences for juveniles. They were being supervised while working on the fields by guards
riding horses with shotguns who forced them to pick crops. Disciplinary records at the prison
show that if an inmate refused to pick crops and cotton he or she would be punished with time in
“the hole” where food was limited and they were sometimes tear-gassed for no apparent
reason. Some inmates including Mattew the African American teenager who would rather
consider the circumstances of “the hole” rather than picking cotton and keep his dignity.
Stevenson was fearful that some of the inmate’s actions with there disciplinary records would
not allow parole which would give a better boost to Stevenson in helping the incarcerated. The
United States has the most people in the world in prison around the whole world. The U.S.
represents 4% of the population, but 22% of them living in the U.S. are incarcerated.
Sources:
Temin, Peter. “Mass Incarceration.” In The Vanishing Middle Class: Prejudice and Power in a Dual
Economy, 101-14. Cambridge, Massachusetts; London, England: MIT Press, 2017.
www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt1mtz5sw.12.
WESTERN, BRUCE, and CHRISTOPHER MULLER. “Mass Incarceration, Macrosociology, and the
Poor.” Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 647 (2013): 166-89.
www.jstor.org/stable/23479100.
Western, Bruce, and Christopher Wildeman. “The Black Family and Mass Incarceration.” The Annals
of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 621 (2009): 221-42.
www.jstor.org/stable/40375840