Brooklynn Johnston
Gold 4
11/11/16
Mrs. Dwigans
Human Rights Violations in The United States
The United States has issues with Human Rights Violations. It's issues started in 1619 when slaves were first introduced to the US, we have issues with racism, discrimination, and basic human rights not being meet with prisons.  Discrimination has many branches to go off in the line of human rights. Women are discriminated against at workplaces as well as immigrants, and people of color. One big issue for the US is prison overcrowding, it gives issues because they are often understaffed and makes it a less controlled environment.
The causes of the issues are people in general. People are very opinionated and although they try not to let option affect their decisions it still happens. With women in workplaces they make up half the workforce. Yet they are still getting paid 80 cents to a dollar a man makes (IWPR). This cause also stands true for racism such as the tragedy of Michael Brown, an African American teen that was unarmed and killed by police. This happened again with an 18 year old named Paul O'Neal. Everyone knows these are big issues but they don't seem to think about how much it does or might affect them. A history of racism is in America along with other Human Rights Violations. "Many of the Africans brought to America starting in the 17th century arrived as slaves, kidnapped from their homelands in various parts of Africa," is only one example of the history of Human Rights Violations in the US (Siddiqui).

There are a plethora of solutions to better the US with Human Rights Violations. Although some are more practical than others they could all work. Many people agree that ways to change are media pressure as well as government involvement. Others believe with prison overcrowding we should let them get out early for volunteering in drug research or not take them in for drugs as much. "Under one law, judges are required to sentence drug offenders to prison terms ranging from 5 years to 20 years, depending on the type and quantity of the drug," is an example of issue of why we have overcrowding which we can fix with lower sentence times (Knafo). The suggestions of overcrowding are different as they talk about either keeping them in for less time or letting them go all together. Many people predict that there will be a lot of media coverage over all issues and thus will force the government to do something about it. 
With all solutions we will have barriers. The main barrier is money for many of the Human Rights Violations. It will take a lot of money to pay both genders equally and will take money to find a set solution to overcrowding. Another issues is humans as with racism you many never get rid of it. Based on research there is reason to believe that we could solve all Human Rights Violation except for racism as we have the freedom to speech and you can not change the opinions of others even if you try. "Racism cannot be destroyed but it can be taught to be controlled," you could try to prevent it by not putting labels on things such as race though this wouldn't work due to scientists using race to make up graphs about population (Linton).
The best solutions to Human Rights Violations in the US is to build on what we have learned. With discrimination against women in the workplace we could always start paying them more or lower salary for men to where the women are being played according to jobs. With Prisons we could start reducing sentence time if they do good behavior and volunteer for drug trials. With Race we need to try our best to slowly teach kids and younger generations that race is not really a thing, that we maybe different colors but we are all people.   

Sources
Waldman, Paul. "Six Charts That Explain Why Our Prison System Is So Insane." The American Prospect. N.p., n.d. Web. 15 Nov. 2016.
@WAJ_12. "Why Prison Reform Is so Crucial in 2016." OUTSET. N.p., 06 Jan. 2016. Web. 15 Nov. 2016.
Knafo, Saki. "10 Ways To Reduce Prison Overcrowding And Save Taxpayers Millions." The Huffington Post. TheHuffingtonPost.com, n.d. Web. 15 Nov. 2016.
"Khan Academy." Khan Academy. N.p., n.d. Web. 15 Nov. 2016
"A Brief History of Racism in the United States." SoundVision.com. N.p., n.d. Web. 15 Nov. 2016.
"BBC NEWS | Talking Point | Will We Ever Get Rid of Racism? Your Reaction." BBC News. BBC, 01 Mar. 1999. Web. 17 Nov. 2016.
"Pay Equity & Discrimination." Pay Equity & Discrimination — IWPR. N.p., n.d. Web. 17 Nov. 2016.