A New Sentencing Reform For The United States

The United States prison population has grown seven-fold over the past forty years, and many Americans today tend to believe that the high levels of incarceration in our country stem from factors such as racism, socioeconomic differences, and drugs. While these factors have contributed to the incarceration rate present in our country today, I argue that the most important reason our country has such a high incarceration rate is the policy changes that have occurred since the 1970s. During this time, the United States has enacted policy changes that have produced an astounding rise in the use of imprisonment for social control. These policy changes were enacted in order to achieve greater consistency, certainty, and severity and include sentencing laws such as determinate sentencing, truth-in-sentencing, mandatory minimum sentencing, and three strikes laws (National Research Council 2014). Furthermore, I argue that mandatory sentencing has had the most significant effect on the incarceration rate.

In any given year now, incarceration rates has tripled with approximately 13 million people introduced to American jails in any given year. This increase in the prison population far outpaced the crime rate and the US population growth. Today, America has around 5% of the world’s population but a quarter of the world’s prison population.

Over the past few decades, the United States has witnessed a huge surge in the number of individuals in jail and in prison. Evidence suggests the mass imprisonment policy from the last 40 years was a horrible catastrophe. Putting more people in prison not only ruined lives, it disrupted families, prevented ex-prisoners to find housing, to get an education, or even a good job. Regrettably, the United States has a higher percent of its population incarcerated than any other country. America is responsible for a quarter of the world’s inmates, and its incarceration rate is increasing exponentially. The expense produced by these overcrowded prisons cost the country a substantial amount of money every year. Although people are incarcerated for a number of reasons, the country’s prisons are focused on punishment rather than reform, and the result is a misguided system that fails to rehabilitate criminals or discourage crime. By researching mass incarceration, I hope to get society to understand that incarcerating an individual not only effects the family, but we will look at the long term consequences on society and how the United States can remain safe and, at the same time, undo much of the damage that results from large-scale imprisonment.

America has a major problem with overcrowding in its prisons, and action needs to be taken. Since 1970, the inmate population in the United States has increased over 700%, far greater than the general population as a whole. This has led to declining quality of life within the prison system including 8th Amendment violations and it represents a needless drain on state finances. There is simply no value in keeping non-violent convicts in the prison system, sometimes for years. The costs are high, and there is very little benefit to America. The justice system needs to be overhauled to relieve the massive crowding in US prisons.

In “Remodeling American Sentencing: A Ten-Step Blueprint for Moving past Mass Incarceration,” the author shows how imprisonment is harsher and tougher in the United States than any other western country. He also mentions how unfair, severe and ineffective they are on reducing crime rates; and mentions changes in the sentences in the future. Tonry states that the United States locks up seven to ten times more of its citizens than other western countries, or that many states spend more on prisons than on education (Tonry 504). So what the country did to the rise of crime rates was it passed harsher laws and built more and larger prisons. However, European countries dealt with this same problem differently. Their governments reduced

Now this act helped form the United States Sentencing Commision which was an independent commision in the judicial branch of the Unites States. Now the Sentencing Commission was in charge of creating sentencing policies and practices for the Federal criminal justice system. In line with Sentencing Reform Act this will increase prison overcrowding. This overcrowding has led to many unsanitary and horrendous conditions that the inmates have to live in. “Under the Act, fewer convicted criminals will be sentenced to probation. Only those few with a minimum guideline sentence of zero to six months will be eligible for probation. As a result of the Guidelines, some ninety percent of defendants sentenced in federal court will go to prison” Stanley A. Weigel. (1988).

This essay explains sentencing in the United States Criminal Justice system. The objectives of punishment in the United States corrections is to help deter crime and to ensure reoffenders don’t reoffend. Sentencing impacts the corrections system and society in a positive manor by eliminating offenders out of the community. Sentencing may include one of the following: probation, fines, prison, community service, probation and so forth depending on the state you reside and the type of offense you commit. Each crime committed doesn’t have a set sentence, therefore they are determined on a case to case basis. The main goal of the criminal justice system is to defend the community and serve justice. Sentencing plays a vital role in the Criminal Justice system.

Punishments are no longer as cruel, the death penalty has been lifted in multiple states, and prisoners are being treated in a more equal manner, but the system should continue to be improved even more to accomplish what needs to be done in order to make the streets safer. Crime has changed from what it once was in the past. Rates have gone up and people appear to be behaving in a more difficult manner. The government cannot afford to continue treating prisoners the way they once did in the past. Reform is not just for the prisoners. Reform is for the people in the communities of America. But there appears to be a few setbacks when it comes to reform, and one of those setbacks is cost. Though according to Gary C. Mohr, “Criminal justice systems can be people-oriented, evidence-based and cost-effective while remaining focused on the safety and well-being of those living in the different communities.” Therefore, cost should not be an excuse as to why the system cannot be reformed, especially when it comes to public safety. In fact, there should be no excuses when it comes to public safety. Prisons should do what must be

Within the last four decades, the rate of incarceration in the United States has continued to increase exponentially. The Bureau of Justice reports that the inmate population in 1971 was estimated at two hundred thousand, while the current number stands at roughly 1.5 million – nearly eight times more than the number of inmates in 1971. Because of the high costs associated with prison operations, their overcrowding, and wrongful convictions, California introduced legislative measures such as Propositions 36 and 47 as well as Assembly Bills 109 and 117, in order to lessen the number of incarcerations. Not only will implementing these reforms save the state millions in revenue, they will also rightfully place truly dangerous criminals in

These crimes include low-level offenses; drug offenses, sex offenses, property offenses, etc. With 94% of inmates in Arizona prisons being sentenced on behalf of these specific low-level crimes, the rate of those who are incarcerated increase drastically. By incarcerating inmates based off of low-level offenses, correctional costs increase as well. Arizona’s increases in mandatory sentencing laws do not deliver justice nor does it improve public

Similar to the Sentencing Reform Act, the purpose of the United States Sentencing Commission is to prevent inequity of sentencing among federal judges. It’s role is to serve as a strict guideline for Judges to adhere and limits the discretion at which a Judge may alter the length of sentence. The goal of this commission is to hamper factors such as race, sex, socioeconomic status, etc to affect the length of sentence, and aims for the guideline to stand on a neutral ground.

The establishment of mandatory minimum sentencing laws has been a policy blunder since their proliferation in the 1980s. Mandatory minimum laws are negatively affecting the U.S, economically and socially. These laws effectively strip judges of their ability to adjudicate a fair punishment by setting a minimum sentence and handing their discretion over to prosecutors. A number of individuals and their families have been negatively affected by mandatory minimum penalties, however, there are others indirectly affected by these policies. The U.S. taxpayer has to foot the bill for these inmates, all while knowing that prison recidivism rates are tremendously high. These laws are contributing to the over-federalization of crimes by interfering with the state criminal justice system. The abolishment or reform of the federal mandatory minimums is needed to end the social and economic damage these laws have caused.

Within this paper, you will find a comprehensive review of the United States prison system, and why it needs to analyzed to better support and reform the people of this country. I plan to persuade the other side (politicians and society) into seeing that the way the prison system is now, is not ethical nor economical and it must change. We have one of the world’s largest prison population, but also a very high rate of recidivism. Recidivism is when the prisoners continuously return to prison without being reformed. They return for the same things that they were doing before. So, this leads us to ask what exactly are we doing wrong? When this happens, we as a nation must continuously pay to house and feed these inmates. The purpose of a prison needs to be examined so we can decide if we really are reforming our inmates, or just continuing a vicious cycle. What is the true purpose of prison besides just holding them in a cell? There must be more we can do for these hopeless members of society.

The United States is home to five percent of the world population, but 25 percent of the world’s prisoner. There must be a change to the current prison system which is doing more harm than good in American society and must be reformed. Reasons for this claim are that American prisons are too overcrowded with inmates, which creates a dangerous and unhuman environment. The cost to run a prison has gotten too expensive for tax payer pockets, and lastly the prison system is more as a punishment instead of rehabilitation with about sixteen percent of inmates most serious offence being drug charges. Prisons fall short of reforming criminals and the government is obligated to completely reform the prison systems in the United States.

These measures were taken to ensure public safety but are now posing a problem for our correctional facilities. Overcrowding and budgets are among the problems brought about by these measures. Both the state and federal correctional population throughout the United States have steadily seen significant increases in their population, every year for the past decades. Based on the census found on the Bureau of Justice website, the data collected between June 30th 2000 to December 30th 2005 showed that prisoners held in custody between federal and state prisons increased by 10%. (“Bureau of Justice Statistics”, p.1 -2)