America Should Not Afford For Nonviolent Criminals Essay

Mandatory sentencing has good intentions that people should be required to serve a minimum amount of time for the crime they committed. If someone broke into a person’s house and stole a lot of their belongings, the victims would have a little assurance that the criminal will pay for what they did by going to jail for at least ten years or more. But since incarceration does not always convince or prevent ex-convicts from re-offending, many people might question why they are even let back into society. Incarceration is pricy and the purpose of this paper is to find ways that reduce the number of people locked up in a beneficiary way to society. If people are more likely to commit a crime after incarceration, then having someone serve ten years of prison for having drugs on them will probably increase their rate of reoffending more than if they were in there for a shorter period of

Unlike jail or prisons, which create an expensive cycle of violence and crime, these alternatives actually prevent violence and strengthen communities. Community corrections programs provide

The corrections system has gone through the medical model, the community model, and the crime control model over the last century. In the late eighteen hundreds, the belief that incarceration itself did not reduce crime was emerging. Community based sanctions, like probation and parole, were thought to be great additions and that they would work well in conjunction with incarceration. (Wodahl, 8) Between

Punishment has evolved from the days of waiting to be hung to the sophisticated prison systems of today. However prisons in the United States are crowded and costly and they are not always appropriate for all offenders, especially those that have committed minor offenses. In the last couple of decades new methods of punishment has been developed for the minor offender. These fall under the category of intermediate community sanction and consist of electronic monitoring and home confinement. These punishments have proven very useful in dealing with minor offenders, pretrial confinement and others in need of supervision. They seem to be effective and help to transfer some of the cost of prison back to the offender.

Minorities in these urban areas have a hard time finding employment that could support their family efficiently. Most end up dropping out of school and join or are forced to join gangs. They are more likely to turn to crime as a means of survival which increases their chances of building a criminal history. This type of criminal activity also ties back into the Three Strikes Law (Nicosia, MacDonald, & Arkes. 2013) which states that the offender will be incarcerated on their third offense, no matter how minor the charge. The lack of rehabilitative resources in the criminal justice system leads to repeat offenders also. Although it should not be the responsibility of those in society who are doing the right thing to pay for services for those who are incarcerated, we are doing ourselves an injustice if we don’t. If we are not providing rehabilitative classes, vocational/job training, or some type of counseling while prisoners are incarcerated, we are defeating the purpose of locking them up. Criminal justice referrals account for almost 37% of drug treatment admissions (Nicosia, MacDonald, & Arkes. 2013. p. 78). If we don’t address the issues that got them incarcerated in the first place, they will turn back to the only life they know that provided fast money. I

Statistics have proven that incarceration alone is a monetary pitfall and does not deter the cluster of non-violent drug related crimes in this country. We need to create an alternative habilitation pattern for these offenders including an assessment of their mental health, specialized life skills training, and occupational employment assistance: in some cases, in lieu of incarceration and in others, in conjunction with incarceration. Ask yourself these questions: What affect would this type of intense program have on the recidivism rate? Would we be saving tax-payer dollars by producing graduates from drug rehabilitation programs instead of housing repeat criminals? To

An open dialogue would be required between the legislature, department of correction personnel and the public. This dialogue would provide policy changes to the early release credit programs that focused on the reduction in prison population of non-violent offenders, establish rehabilitative programs to provide re-entry guidance and most importantly, always keep public safety at the forefront of the discussions. “The earned credits are viewed as incentivizing inmates to participate in rehabilitative programs that, in turn, should reduce recidivism after release from prison” (Turner, 2011). The prison system should not be viewed as a warehouse for humans but rather as a much needed form of justice that provides public safety by removing violent offenders and rehabilitating those that are deemed non-violent. All parties involved should take note that the major flaws in credit programs are not the programs themselves but rather the lack of accountability and

"Approximately 1 in 51 adults in the United States was under community supervision at yearend 2013, the lowest rate observed since 1996" (Herberman & Bonczar, 2014, p.1). Probation/parole supervision also known as "community" supervision, helps individuals (ex-criminals) acclimate back in their community. Probation is used when a judge chooses to let the offender serve his sentence under officer supervision in the community, rather than in prison. It is usually given to individuals that have committed a non-violent/ minor infraction or that have a really good defense attorney. However, when someone has been sent to prison for an extended period of time but have served a certain amount of their time or has proven to the Parole Board that they have improved their behavior, will be released to a Parole officer. The probation and parole program is comprised of two approaches casework and brokerage. Casework approach deals with the offender as a flawed person that needs help; brokerage approach is when the probation/parole officer uses his influence in the community to assist the criminal in finding employment or programs. Knowing how to use these approaches along with monitoring techniques will assist in the officer and offender being successful. This paper will examine the approaches to PO work along with the types of monitoring used to keep track of offenders. The purpose of this paper is to examine the elements of community supervision (probation/parole) that will make the

An argument that’s been going around for years now is whether young teens should be sentenced to prison for life based on the crimes they have committed. According to author Gail Garinger who wrote the article “Juveniles Don’t Deserve Life Sentences” strongly disagrees that they shouldn’t be sentenced for life because of their age and how they are not mature enough to understand their actions. However, Jennifer Jenkins, the author of “On Punishment and Teen Killers” strongly disagrees with the outcome of teen killers not being put behind bars for life for what they have committed. Therefore I, on the other hand agree with Jennifer Jenkins. Nobody, no matter how old you are shouldn’t get away with taking someone else’s life.

Community-based sanctions have been very appealing for several reasons: First of all, it reduces the community’s reliance on incarceration, which is not only costly but also encourages repeat criminal behavior. However, increasing revocation rates among those under community correction have made policymakers question the effectiveness of these systems (Wodahl, et. al., 2015). Revocations have stressed prison systems, contributing to overcrowding and strained resources at both state and federal levels. In addition, revocation places stress on offenders, families and communities. Graduated sanctions, a series of swift, certain and proportionate punishments for violations, usually not involving incarceration, are proposed as a better alternative for all concerned; however, there is little research as to which kinds of sanctions work best.

Any time a person commits a crime and gets caught, consequences are applied and they are held accountable. Committing crime violates social and legal rules and the effects can follow them for a lifetime. Although people pay the price for committing varies crime in correctional facilities, most of the time other programs are needed to be taken into consideration. Sentencing someone to prison can also suppresses the criminal behavior, feelings, and does not address the offenders criminogenic needs, hence why programing services are so important. When an offender serves their time and participates in programs it reduces the likely hood of them committing offences in the future. Programs such as anger management, therapy, and rehab can help repair

The basic for correctional reforms from punitive approaches to behavior change has become obvious in correctional facilities. Correctional facilities are used to deter recurrence of criminal behavior by people but this does not always work. Many people feel that the reason that the prison system is failing because of the luxury of prisons, TV, internet, free food and a place to live. This is more than some people would get if they were not in the prison system and this is why many do not care if they go back. Today many prisons are a revolving door. It is not hard to believe that out of 10 inmates that are release 6 will return to the prison system within the first three years of their release. In hope of a more useful approach the focus is now being made on rehabilitation. Rehabilitation instead of prison has been on the rise along as rehabilitation in exchange for shorter sentences. This paradigm shift raises a challenge in how courts are sentencing criminals.

In 1985, The Community Corrections Program was established by lawmakers (TDOC, n.d.). By reserving confinement for violent offenders, community-based alternatives allowed sentencing of non-violent felonies to escape imprisonment. The purpose of the program was to reduce the chance of reoccurring criminal behavior while executing community safety. The Community Corrections Program allowed taxpayers' revenue to be redirected from the costly costs of confinement for offenders that were non-violent. The state agreed with qualified private agencies and local governments to contract a range of front-end community-based supervision and resource services for eligible offenders (TDOC, n.d.). Community Corrections offered local courts the opportunity

In the year 2010, Vera Institute of Justice’s Center on Sentencing and Corrections performed a thorough survey on forty states’ prison system, which includes budget allocations, out-of-budget costs, and total taxpayer costs of maintaining prisoners. In this year, those forty states (ten states did not respond to the survey) spent a total of $33.5 billion dollars in costs related to the criminal justice system. Surprisingly, it cost taxpayers $39 billion to maintain this system, which translates to $5.5 billion in expenses that are not included in states’ Department of Corrections budget. According to this report, these forty states held a whopping 1.2 million inmates in correctional facilities during 2010, and the average cost of keeping them lock in was $31,286 per inmate, per year.

From 2005 to 2010, 45% of individuals imprisoned in the United States found themselves imprisoned again within five years of getting out (Fazel and Wolf, 2015). The U.S. makes up less than 5% of the world’s population, yet it houses 25% of the world’s prisoners (Robertson, 2016). So why do we imprison people? The historic purpose of imprisonment was to punish criminals for committing crime(s) in hopes of that punishment being a deterrent. In some cases, prisons were also used to keep criminals off the streets for a while. However, locking criminals up costs enormous amounts of taxpayer money and prisons can only hold so many people. In fact, the average cost of each inmate is roughly $36,286 per year. On average, each taxpayer pays $260 each year for incarceration (Robertson & Robertson, 2016). If our recidivism rate is 45%, how effective is the imprisonment or punishment that criminals are receiving? I argue that instead of relying on strict punishment to deter chronic juvenile offenders, we should instead incorporate a full rehabilitation program into their sentencing. The goal of this rehabilitation program would be to focus on the underlying causes of their criminality and to effectively rehabilitate those causes allowing these juveniles to become functioning citizens again and greatly lowering their chance of recidivating.