Different aspects of the incarceration of arrested persons, taking the case of the United States. Essay

Incarceration of arrested persons has attracted the attention of most researchers from an ethnic point of view. For most researchers, it appears that the rates of incarceration vary significantly with race and ethnic backgrounds. In this review, different aspects of the issue are investigated through integration of various research findings by past outcomes, taking the case of the United States. Through incorporation of case studies, the literature review reflects both qualitative and quantitative findings made by these researchers. It is from these findings that analysis is carried out and the data obtained from these research reports synthesized. Most importantly, the literature review seeks to discover whether there is inequality in terms of race in the number of inmates incarcerated in the United States. In addition, the reasons for this variation in population of inmates are determined and the effects of this variation are also investigated through appraisal of the past research reports integrated in this literature review.
Incarceration Trends in the United States
There has been an unprecedented rise in the use of incarceration in the United States over the past thirty years. With the rise in the rates of crime, the number of prisoners keeps rising significantly and this has attracted the attention of most researchers and scholars in trying to unearth the trends that lead to such increments in the rates of incarceration. According to King (2005), the United States experienced a rise in the number of people in prisons from 330000 in 1972 to 2.1 million in the year 2005. With this escalating rise in the number of prisoners, other issues have been discovered. For instance, matters of racism and ethnicity have emerged. The populations in the United States' prisons reflect significant racial disparities in terms of numbers. Most recently, there have been claims that African Americans are more incarcerated compared to all the other ethnic groups, a finding that some researchers have highly disputed and others supported through empirical studies and findings.
The Case of Wisconsin State
Pawasarat and Quinn (2013) carried out research on the incarceration trends Wisconsin State and laid out the findings on the trends of imprisonment with respect to ethnic discrimination. In their findings, the researchers identified that there were more African Americans in prison as compared to other ethnic groups. From their data obtained from the 2010 count conducted by the U.S Census Bureau, it was found out that up to 12.8% of African Americans of the working age were locked behind bars in prison. Additional findings stated that this was the highest ever recorded value for the African Americans in prison, double of the national average that was initially at 6.7%.
The research also listed identified some of the states that incarcerate African American men. The top states that were identified are Wisconsin, Oklahoma, Iowa, Pennsylvania, California, Louisiana, Texas, Colorado and Kansas. In the state of Wisconsin, for example, there has been mass incarceration of black men and women and this is what most researchers have failed to understand