Big Brother: Overcrowded Prisons

The United States currently over-incarcerates its citizens, and it is not morally justified because it is unsustainable, inhumane, and the product of unethical policies. Approximately 2.3 million people are currently incarcerated in state and federal prisons, juvenile correctional facilities, and jails (Wagner & Rabuy, 2015). Before continuing a practice that affects such a large number of our citizens (not just those in prison, but their families and communities as well), we need to ask the question: Is this working? Is it ethical to continue a practice that may be doing more harm than good?

The purpose of this paper is to discuss the problem and find a solution, but what is the problem? Well the problem is overpopulation in prisons and strain on police resources. Both seemingly different problems have the same root cause, drugs. According to the Federal Bureau of Prisons, 46.3 percent of prisoners are incarcerated because of drug related crimes. That is almost half of all Federal prisoners. This coupled with the fact that over $40 billion go to the drug war every year, which means $500 per second, a lot of money is being diverted from institutions such as the EPA, NASA, and Education. This is the part that got me. To think that all the institutions tasked with creating a better future were losing out on funding because

Overcrowding prisons are an issue that has been influencing the United States prison population for decades, however what is the true significance of overcrowding. As indicated by Jeff Bleich (1989) “the term overcrowding is repetitive, since crowding already refers to a higher level of social density than is desired”. An overcrowded prison is a shocking condition that causes outrage and dissatisfaction among detainees (Haney, 2014). This condition is so undesirable that one can consider it as unconstitutional. An overcrowded prison is commonly recognized as being the fundamental explanation behind appalling misconduct and the expansion of recidivism. According to Wagner and Sakala (2014), United States prison system “hold more than 2.4

Incarceration is not meant to be fun. Prison overcrowding is becoming major issue all over the United State. Our prison and jail inmates are growing dramatically. More and more people are committing more crime, which cause them sometimes locked up. Each state has a different way of sentence offenders. The dictionary define overcrowding as beyond what is usual or comfortable, simple means you cannot have more than the amount of inmate in a cell than the state allows you to. A jail cell design for four inmates can’t have six inmates in there. California is one of the state that has been infected by prison overcrowding and need to come to a conclusion on how to fix and prevents it from happening. The number of inmates are increasing based on their

In the United States, the increasing population within prisons contribute to the stress regarding the security of correctional facilities’ and the negative effects on inmates. Overcrowding can be defined as a space with a concentrated number of objects or people in a space beyond comfort. According to Verne Cox, PhD, “as a group of prison researchers summarized, in the 1980s [...] crowding in prisons is a major source of administrative problems and adversely affects inmate health, behavior, and morale.”(Haney. 2006 (4.)) Furthermore, the effects of overpopulation contribute to that of psychological hardship and emotional distress.

Prisons are overloaded with inmates; there are alternative resources being used to reduce the number of inmates in prison/jail. The alternative resources are community corrections. Community corrections are often a privatized agency that is similar and different from private prisons. Privatized community corrections can give a positive outcome in the criminal justice system, but can also have a negative impact on clients. Why are clients required to pay fees instead of the courts, or taxpayers? There are laws written in the state of Colorado regarding Community Corrections. Overall, community corrections have advantages as well as disadvantages.

The County of St. Regis has a major problem of jail overcrowding that needs to be resolved soon. Sheriff Horace Farley believes another jail needs to be built in order to accommodate to the extra prisoners. Sheriff Farley and St. Regis County Board of Supervisors both want this temporary jail to be built in the City of Rollins. Rollins city officials, however, do not want a jail being built in the City Center because they had already planned for a downtown to be constructed at the same venue. Years later, the issue of overcrowding still remains so the County and the City of Rollins agreed to expand the women’s jail in order to house more of the female prisoners. The County also decided, without speaking to the officials of Rollins, to also

There is a prison problem in America. 2.3 million offenders were incarcerated in the United States in 2008. The estimated annual cost to house these offenders was 75 billion dollars. Due to the rapid growth in the imprisoned population, significant overcrowding has confirmed that the current populations have reached an all-time high of 108 percent of capacity in the penal system. The United States incarcerates more people at a higher percentage rate than any other country. In fact, Oregon, Vermont, Michigan, Connecticut, and Delaware currently spend more on their prison systems than on higher education. Over the past 23 years, nationwide prison spending has increased six-times faster than spending on higher education. While the costs of mass

Due to budget crises in states across the United States of America, state governments must cut funding to their punishment facilities causing overcrowding in prisons to increase every day. Overcrowded prisons pose a potential breeding ground for crime as hundreds of inmates are squeezed into small accommodations. Thousands of low-level offenders receive jail sentences each day, these criminals make up about a third of the inmates in the United States. In the words of Republican Governor Mitch Daniels of India, in the conservative National Review magazine, “We are imprisoning, in our most expensive spaces, more people for relatively minor, nonviolent offenses, like low-level property and drug violations. Some of our guests are not with the state corrections system long enough for any rehabilitation, substance-abuse counseling or job training to take place” (Katel). Evidently attention and change to this neglected criminal punishment system need to be addressed. This issue remains a troubling problem in our country, state governments offer the best possible solutions to prison overcrowding such as directing local officials to perform and improve prison construction, rethinking criminal law and responding to budgetary concerns.

Is there room for you in the United States prison system? I don’t think so, and you are about to learn why. Corrections have experienced many obstacles while trying to operate prisons and went through a period of transition from 1935 through 1960, while prison officials tried to figure out how to solve their many issues, including an absence of professional programs, as well as overcrowding. During this time period there was a large increase in inmates who were disgruntled about the ever growing population within the jails, so much so that between 1950 and 1960 over 100 riots and major altercations that transpired in the US (Seiter, 2014). Needless to say that these numbers pose a serious risk to inmates as well as correctional officers.

Lastly, a solution to reduce overcrowded prisons is sending fewer people to prison for drug crimes. According to Joanna Woodburn “Approximately 100,000 people are arrested each year”(Woodburn). About half of them are drug offense. People caught with drugs always spend a long sentence and during that sentence they are unable to get the proper help they need, such as treatment programs. Some solutions that could be used is to have drug offenders serve shorter sentences. By having shorter sentences drug offenders can be released and sent to rehabilitation centers. WIth that, cells in prisons will empty at a much faster rate. These are some solution that has been implemented over the years in order to combat the problem of overcrowded prisons.

On the other hand, with this social issue comes a lack of public support. However, with the public being unaware of thy social problems that are occurring in our countries prisons. Many citizens consider that all crimes deserve punishment and that punishment means prison. With the inadequate educational efforts people assume the law and order aspects of the criminal justice in Canada is being attended to properly (CCJA). For example, when Canadians hear a proposal to increase taxes, everyone panics and doesn’t see why they should. People are unaware that the increase in taxes could possible help many Canadians in prison who human rights are being violated against. All things considered, overpopulated prisons are a social problem that should

Today, it’s sad to say an analogy of an overcrowded prison, can be compared to a storage container. The penal system needs to refocus, and remember that a prison is not a way station, but a facility where incarcerated individuals serve time for a crime committed. We will identify and discuss the main reasons that prisons are overcrowded; procedures that are used to control the overcrowding; and why or why not can issues of overcrowding be fixed.

Overcrowding prisons is a pressing issue that our society is facing today. In this article I read titled “Community-Based Alternatives to Prison: How the Public and Court Personal View them” stated “while community corrections, including diversions treatment programs and intermediate punishment programs which are promoted in both professional and academic literature are relatively rare in actual practice.” (Benekos 1990) States with high crime rates also have high incarceration rates. Community alternatives were also less expensive and also were more likely to divert the offender from a criminal life style. The Omnibus Crime Control Act and the Safe Streets Act were projects funded by the law enforcement assistance admiration. After that community

This article explained how the biggest federal inmate release on record will take place this weekend. Obama is releasing nearly 6,000 criminals to avoid overcrowding in prisons and jails. Many of these criminals were convicted for drug offenses. The commission stated, “The sentencing commission decided a year ago to lower maximum sentences for nonviolent drug offenders and to make the change retroactive, with the inmate releases effective November 1, 2015. Sentences were reduced an average of 18%.”