Kovach 1

Carly Kovach
Professor: Adam Padgett
English 102 Section 33
October 20th, 2016
Lowering Todays Incarceration Rates:
An Annotated Bibliography
Inquiry: How can we lower the incarceration rates?
Proposed Thesis: I am going to argue that with more education and appropriate sentencing for
certain crimes, the incarceration rates as a whole will decrease in the future.
Intro: With a high interest in the criminal justice system, one area that I want to discuss is the
incarceration rates, and the factors that affect them. According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics,
the United States has had the highest incarceration rate in the world since 2002, with around 500

Comment [KM1]: Reword, something like Since I have a

high interest in the criminal justice system.. just is
confusing like it is now.

prisoners for every 100,000 people. To put that in prospective, the normal rate of incarceration
for most countries tends to stay around 100 prisoners per 100,000 people, causing the United
States to house 25 percent of the worlds prison population! Sadly, the age group that tends to

Comment [KM2]: I would change to a period just to

seem more professional

have the biggest affect on the incarceration rates are the people in their 20s and early 30s. The

Comment [KM3]: 20s and 30s

International Centre for Prison Studies named the top 4 reasons for the United States having the

Comment [KM4]: type out word four

highest incarceration rates, with the number one reason being excessive punishment for non-

Comment [KM5]: I would start a new sentence here

violent crimes. The other reasons include: The War on Drugs, too many long sentences, and
private prisons. It is evident these issues need to be discussed in order for something to be done
to lower these numbers. If more programs were designed to educate people on the different

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reasons they could be incarcerated and each persons sentence directly reflected their crime,
there is no doubt the United States would be able to lower incarceration rates.

Caumont, Andrea. "Americans Skeptical of Value of Enforcing Marijuana Laws." Pew Research
Center RSS. N.p., 2013. Web. 21 Sept. 2016.
Although this article talks about the legality of marijuana, the overall concept is what
relates to my research topic. Author Andrea Caumont is the social media editor at the
Pew Research Center, which explains why this article was given its title. Most people are

Comment [KM6]: I would get rid of this, just makes it

seem like youre negating the usefulness of this source, or
just reword it

uninterested in the thought of incarceration rates, but when an article is given a title such
as this, more readers are likely to at least browse its content. The article comments on the
idea of having lower incarceration rates if low-level drugs such as marijuana were
legalized, stating that, roughly seventy-two percent of Americans say government
efforts to enforce marijuana laws cost more than they are worth. Additionally, sixtytwo percent of Americans do not categorize marijuana as a gateway drug, leaving the
remaining thirty-eight percent coming from people ages sixty-five or older. The article is
a good source to use for my research paper because it rather than making the argument

Comment [KM7]: Negate this

purely about legalizing marijuana, it supports the bigger topic of legalizing it to help
reduce incarceration rates.
DeSilver, Drew. "Feds May Be Rethinking the Drug War, but States Have Been Leading the
Way." Pew Research Center RSS. N.p., 02 Apr. 2014. Web. 21 Sept. 2016.
This article discusses one of the top 4 reasons for the United States having the highest
incarceration rate that was previously mentioned. The War on Drugs has always been

Comment [KM8]: Spell it out

Kovach 3
seen as a zero tolerance policy, resulting in many people forced to do time for an
outrageous number of years due to a small infraction. The article references a Pew
Research Center report showing that more than sixty-three percent of people believe in
states moving away from mandatory prison sentences for non-violent drug offenders.
Attorney General Eric Holder shared his views on the subject when he called for reduced
sentences for low-level drug offenders in federal cases in hopes to reduce the growth of
the federal prisoner population. He stated, low-level drug offenders wouldnt
automatically be charged with offenses that carried strict mandatory minimum
sentences. This article is directly related to my topic because it is written with the
same stance on the issue as my research paper. It is fairly relevant seeing as not much as

Comment [KM9]: Change to also?

changed in the past 2 years and provides the necessary evidence needed to support my

Comment [KM10]: Spell it out

argument of giving prisoners less time for low-level drug crimes. In addition, this source
has high credibility because it comes from an online research center website, and the
author Drew Desilver has written many other articles for this website discussing ongoing
issues in the United States.

Comment [KM11]: This is good

Dickinson, Tim. "Crime, Politics And Justice." Rolling Stone 1238 (2015): 34-37. Academic
Search Complete. Web. 18 Oct. 2016.
The article talks about how the United States politicians are all working together to come

Comment [KM12]: I would negate this word

up with ways to reduce the prison populations. Texas senator Ted Cruz was quoted as

Comment [KM13]: Negate this too

saying, Today, far too many young menfind themselves subject to sentences of many

Comment [KM14]: Since you are saying was quoted I

think it is important that you physically put the quotes.

decades for relatively minor, nonviolent drug infractionswe should not live in a world
of Les Miserables, where a young man finds his entire future taken away by excessive

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mandatory minimums. The article goes on to say that there are more people locked up
today for drug offenses alone than the entire prison system held in 1970. Obviously this
has been a preceding issue that the United States needs to come to terms with. It has been
a problem for too long, and it is necessary that these politicians take a stand and
implement new programs to decrease the incarceration rates. This article is very useful
for research paper because it shows just how many people understand this is a big

Comment [KM15]: For my research paper

problem and how many believe that change is the needed action. The peer reviewed

Comment [KM16]: I would change to that change is

needed

article came from an online library database which shows its credibility.
Motel, Seth. "Americas New Drug Policy Landscape." Pew Research Center for the People and
the Press RSS. N.p., 02 Apr. 2014. Web. 21 Sept. 2016.
This article discusses one of the options for lowering the incarceration rate in the United
States. People who have serious drug problems need more than just jail time for their
actions. This article states that, sixty-seven percent of Americans say that the
government should focus more on providing treatment for those who use illegal drugs
such as heroin and cocaine. Mostly regarding health reasons, they need to be given the
suitable treatment for their addiction because drugs that dangerous have the power to kill
people. This article is a credible source because the website it comes from is a research
center and the article provides a sufficient national survey on the topic itself.
Sherman, Lawrence W. "Reducing Incarceration Rates: The Promise of Experimental
Criminology." Crime & Delinquency 46.3 (2000): 299. Academic Search Complete. Web.
18 Oct. 2016.

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This article provides a way to lower the incarceration rate by using experimental
criminology. The main idea is to, discover more effective programs for crime prevention
without prison. In essence, we need to create an all-inclusive group of knowledge on
prevention and other means of legal agreement that would create credible alternatives to
incarcerating people. These experiments will be designed to evaluate the productivity of
rehabilitation programs by allowing implications on casual relationships with a
specifiable degree of certainty. Different designs can potentially misinterpret the
information by saying a program works when it doesnt, or that it is effective when it is
actually ineffective. This article is very credible because it was taken from an online
database and the article itself uses multiple references signifying where the information
came from.
Snyder, Howard N., and Jeanne B. Stinchcomb. "Do Higher Incarceration Rates Mean Lower
Crime Rates?." Corrections Today 68.6 (2006): 92-97. Academic Search Complete. Web.
18 Oct. 2016.
This article discusses the relationship between incarcerating more offenders and reducing
crime rates in the United States. The theory between these two concepts is defined in the
article as when, a society relies more on imprisonment as a response to crime, the
amount of crime committed in that society should diminish. Basically that means that
crime rates would be expected to decrease as incarceration rates increase. However, the
reality of that theory can be debated depending on the research done supporting each side
of the claim. This article relates to my research topic because it discusses certain aspects
that can effect the incarceration rate. It comes from an academic database which provides

Comment [KM17]: I would negate this.

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its credibility, and uses many different research studies to expand on the theory between
higher incarceration rates and and lower crime rates.

Overall, you did a good job showing the differences in the arguments that your sources
were making. The way that you analyze the sources through quotes makes your
annotations seem more credible. The only thing that I would change is making the length
of all of your annotations more similar. The last couple seem to lack the same amount of
summarizing as the first few.