Race, prisoners, and jail

I always knew minorities had a big part in jails, but I never knew quite how much. After reading this article I've realized that officers can be racist when it comes to issues like these. I mean 99.2% of the kids busted were minorities, that's insane! I don't think this necessarily means more black kids or Mexican kids are doing crimes, I just think police officers are going to neighbors they know have crime more frequently than "white" neighborhoods so of course they're going to catch the minority kids. I think blacks already have that "bad guy" reputation and by seeing more of them in jail it just kind of proves to people that it's true. I'm not sure why it seems that more minorities are in prison than white people but it does seem to work out that way.
Referring to primary and secondary deviance, which we talked about in class today, I definitely think that most prisoners, once busted, will get busted again. Just by the stats alone it's shows that most prisoners once released will get caught again and be put right back in jail. I don't know if society's noticed or not, but this isn't good! Haha. I'm no expert or anything so I'm not sure how we can help prevent this problem, if there even is a solution, but jails aren't really doing the trick clearly. I don't think locking someone up for years at a time is really helping them to become a better person. It may keep them out of society's hands for awhile so they can't commit crime, but it's not helping them as a person. What these prisoners need is motivation. They're not getting that in jail. What they're being taught is jail is to listen to every instruction before you get beat and to behave well while in front of officers. What they do once in their cells is up to them but they will get punished for bad behavior. They are dehumanized when they are in prison and you can tell. They no longer have an identity and they aren't treated like normal humans. I think a better solution to jail is having a parole type thing but have them doing that the whole time instead of serving prison time first. This way they're helping the community and maybe seeing how much it sucks to have to clean up after criminals who do bad things. Also, they aren't trapped in a building 24/7; they can experience the real world still.
This article just goes to show these crimes are starting at a young age and since most prisoners are stuck in the "Vicious Cycle," then there's no wonder that people spend their whole lives in jail.