Jan. 30 Post 2

Weilin

Effect of Cultural Issues

In my project, LVSIF: Beyond Bars, we are investigating women in the Northampton County Prison. Though the United States is a strongly developed country, it still has a big problem with mass incarceration. After the 1970s, the imprisonment rate is rising rapidly while crime is decreasing. Now, the US has the highest incarceration rate in the world. There are several cultural issues that influence this project.

First, the United States has a typical drug and alcohol culture. It is common sense that some states don’t ban marijuana. In many American artworks such as raps and movies, we often see people taking drugs and teenagers under 21 drinking secretly using fake IDs. This cultural issue could be a factor causing a high crime rate and a high incarceration rate in America.

Second, American citizens are allowed to buy guns. According to some studies, nearly 1/3 of the world’s public mass shootings occurred in the United States. The mass incarceration could be a result.

Last but not least, the US is a diverse country that involves different races and large LGBTQ+ groups. I’ve learned in my English class that people of color make up 70% of the US prison population, and LGBTQ+ people are overrepresented within the prison complex. Discrimination could be an issue. I’m curious to find out more reasons for this problem.

My Experience

I come from Shanghai, China. China has an extremely strict anti-drug law and very wide propaganda against drugs. More and more Chinese people have developed a strong awareness of the harm of drugs. Even when a famous person is found taking drugs, no matter the celebrity is Jaycee (Jackie Chan’s son) or PG One (the champion of The Rap of China), he/she will be blacklisted forever.

China also bans guns. People take this issue seriously. Once I was taking a walk with my mother, she suddenly felt a sharp pain on her right calf. Fortunately, she was not injured. When we turned around, we saw someone from the building behind quickly closed the windows. Our neighbors said that it was an air gun, and they were hit before as well. We called the police immediately. They arrived in three minutes and arrested the air gun owners.

Furthermore, China has a relatively less diverse environment than America. People in our neighborhood are all from one race. In one region, we have a similar economic level and education level. In class, we discussed that for Chinese people, the most important thing is harmony. A harmonic atmosphere is really important to us. We establish good relationships with our neighbors and try to avoid trouble. In the place where I live, conflicts hardly happen.

Effective Cultural Practices

First of all, there is already the War on Drugs carrying on in America. In order to reduce the population attracted by drugs, the US needs more moral education and propaganda against drug and alcohol abuse. Teenagers are easy to be affected by pop culture products, so people also need to supervise and to control the words or scenes about drugs and alcohol.

Secondly, it is really unrealistic to ban all the guns, but the black sheep are illegal guns instead of the legal ones. The US citizens have to go through a difficult process to buy a gun, but things are different in the black markets. The government and police forces should pay more attention to registration for purchasing guns and where the guns go after production. For ordinary people, we must keep alert to our surroundings, and learn more skills to defend ourselves from weapons.

Thirdly, more moral education upon minority groups is required in order to eliminate discrimination. People from minority groups are often bullied and ignored. They usually face many more obstacles in their life. After trying to put myself into their shoes, I realized that it is very likely for them to be driven by revenge. If they commit crimes, others will have deeper discrimination on them. To break the vicious cycle, we need more education and more policies that benefit people from minority groups.