Browsing by Author "Stevens, Edward"

The United States has been built on centuries of oppression of incarcerated people alongside systemic racism toward minorities. Once again these inequities entered the public discourse following a pandemic, rising unemployment, political uncertainty, and several high-profile police killings of unarmed Black people. Millions of Americans protested in the streets and called attention to the necessary criminal justice reforms on social media. Suddenly, terms like prison abolition, defund the police, #BlackLivesMatter, and police brutality entered everyday conversations. The American criminal justice system was built in the aftermath of the Civil War to disenfranchise and oppress Black Americans, and later other racial minorities, as well. Racist media and political campaigns furthered the myth of Black criminality resulting in widespread support for harsh criminal penalties. This led to the United States having the highest incarceration rate in addition to one of the highest recidivism rates in the world. The question remains, “How should systemic racism in the American criminal justice system be addressed?” Finland, with its focus on rehabilitating offenders and establishing a strong welfare state, serves as a point of inspiration. The hypothesis of this study was that the reasoning behind Finnish people’s support of a rehabilitative approach was that incarceration status was less stigmatized in Finland. Interviews with formerly incarcerated people in Finland appeared to indicate that this is the case. However, studies with more participants and greater diversity are needed to add to this research. Moving forward, America should institute reforms to reduce the stigma attached to incarceration like automatically expunging criminal records for those eligible or establishing employment programs that begin upon release from prison.