The Problem of Reincarceration

I have ultimately decided to do my photo-voice project on the United States prison system, particularly regarding mass incarceration as well as individuals who have repeatedly committed crimes, even after being released from prison. I find this to be an important topic because of how seemingly ignored it is. It’s well known in our country that mass incarceration, prison overcrowding, and the prison system in general are filled with major problems, and many people adopt the “out of sight, out of mind” idea. Prison is treated as a place to put people who we don’t want in our community because of an act they have committed. But does prison really take care of the issue? Does prison change these people for the better? Upon beginning my research, I found two very important statistics that were widely agreed upon by many different sources. I will list them here: 

• Roughly two-thirds of prisoners who are released end up getting arrested again within five years of their release 

• For prisoners who have a juvenile record, the rate of recidivism is over 80% 

I have created an art piece as a visual representation of the latter statistic, of which the images can be found below. I have two equally sized jars each containing small origami paper stars, one with red stars and one with pink stars. The jar filled with red stars contains 72 individual stars, the maximum amount that I could fit in order to completely fill the jar. The jar with pink stars contains only 14. The red stars are meant to symbolize a group of incarcerated individuals with a juvenile record, and the pink stars are meant to symbolize the number of those individuals who will not be arrested again within 5 years of their release. 14 is roughly 20% of 72; so 80% of those individuals, according to the aforementioned statistics, are likely to be re-incarcerated after their release. This art piece is meant to show just how many formerly incarcerated individuals end up back in prison, indicating just how broken the prison system in our country is.