The criminal justice system includes law enforcement, the courts and corrections. All three are cultural institutions that reflect American values. Within the criminal justice system three trends are currently in progress: the distancing of police from the communities they serve; the increasingly bureaucratic and ineffective nature of the courts; and the growing tendency of prison as a means of punishing rather than rehabilitating. American prisons are jammed to capacity as states like California and Pennsylvania are spending billions on the construction of new prisons. Meanwhile the inner cities continue to suffer from poverty and lack of school funding. The lack of educational and employment opportunities in many urban largely minority areas makes such areas a feeding ground for the prison system. For this reason I am opposed to incarceration over rehabilitation. Only rehabilitation can help change current trends in arrests and incarceration rates.
One reason we need rehabilitation is because of the young age and minority status of most prisoners. From area where they saw little opportunity to advance by working hard and playing by the rules, they felt denied the promise of the American dream. As Durkheim would argue, their deviance becomes a reaction to this perception as they turn to crime or drugs as an alternative option for success. The young mainly minority males in prison deserve opportunities for education and to learn employment skills. Many have come from broken homes where substance abuse and violence are the norm. They live in areas where schools are run down as new prisons are constructed instead of and at the expense of educational pursuits. In a supposedly democratic system, the upper classes (mainly white and wealthy) give orders to the bureaucracy (law enforcement) who, in turn, have a negative view of minorities from their street experiences. As
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