Criminal justice advocates in the United States argue that mandatory minimum sentences are a major cause of the removal of the "bottom income half to quartile" of its population from the general public. As part of police targeting and surveillance and often harsh sentencing, mandatory sentencing often is proposed as "fairness" by those unfamiliar with the penal systems in the US. Mandatory sentencing still has not been linked to other areas such as racial profiling, a 700% increase in US prison incarceration rates, zero tolerance and prison growth at the expense of employment, housing, education, family support and quality of life.