Compassionate Release Program Analysis

Parole eligibility is expanded to certain classes of nonviolent offenders. These parole eligibilities are expanded to include nonviolent offenders who were previously ineligible because of sentencing enhancements, such as selling drugs near a school. Allows nonviolent offenders who are otherwise ineligible for parole to petition the sentencing court for eligibility after serving 25 percent of their sentence. Mississippi implements a geriatric parole provision which initiates parole hearings for nonviolent offenders who are 60 years or older and have served at least 10 years in prison. They mandate that the Department of Corrections create case plans for all parole-eligible offenders at admission to ensure needed treatment and services are completed before parole review. Restricts parole hearings to cases in which offenders have failed to comply with their case plans or victims or local law enforcement officials have requested hearings, creating a more predictable rate for paroles granted. Probation is an alternative to incarceration. At the time of a trial, a judge has the sole authority to recommend probation for a defendant. Once someone

Due to the increase of correctional populations that continue to exceed its’ capacity, correctional alternatives were created. Correctional alternatives were to alleviate both prison crowding and the threat to public safety posed by serious offenders (Flores, Holsinger, Latessa, Lowenkamp, & Makarios, 2010). Rehabilitation in the 1970s was a variable correctional goal however by the 1980s intermediate sanctions developed . Intermediate sanctions consist of house arrest, electronic monitoring, boot camps, day reporting centers, intensive supervision probation or parole, community service, fines, and curfews (Tonry, 1990). These sanctions offer community based punishments that focus on deterrence, incapacitation, and retribution (Tonry, 1990).

According to the law, convicted felons can be released through either parole, which include discretionary parole or supervised mandatory release, or upon the expiration of their sentences (unconditional mandatory release). These releasing methods have both similarities and differences which will be explained in the next paragraph of this paper.

Probation serves as the most frequently used sentence for those convicted. This is evident when you consider that the United States justice system oversees nearly 7 million people. Over half of those, a staggering 3.7 million people, are on probation with another 840,000 on parole (Rabuy, 2017). With those individuals representing the largest percentage of the American corrections system, it is important that we learn as much as possible about probation in order to improve the success of these programs. Probation involves a set of conditions that the probationer agrees to adhere to in exchange for remaining in the community. Typical conditions include a waiver of the offenders fourth amendment rights, maintaining employment or school

Each day, men, women and children are put behind bars suffer from lack of access to medical health care. Chronic illnesses go untreated, emergencies are ignored, and patients with serious illnesses fail to receive needed care. A small failure to medical care can turn in to death of an inmate if left untreated. Prisoners are humans whether inmates or not, with normal health issues or diseases. Even a common cold is an example of an illness that needs treatment. A lot with what is wrong with the health care system today, in the United States deals with money. Within prisons, it is an entire different story. The mission of medical care is to diagnose, comfort and cure. These goals are not being achieved within the prison system. Care needs to be given to every inmate, even the most despised and violent one among them all.

The issue goes further than not treating mental illness but, as well, physical illness. Bridgett Fogel was doing time for traffic violations as well as driving under the influence. She entered prison knowing she was pregnant, she had also reported server cramps and discharge, yet was deemed healthy with no further medical care. When her water broke, she had reportedly urinated herself, finally after nine hours in the prison infirmary she was transported to the hospital and gave birth. Her child never made it (Glazer, 2017). Her story is not the only one. Her situation is not the only one, child example. Diseases such as Hepatitis C and HIC/AIDS rates triple in prisoners, however, prisons often do not have the money for resources to treat

Both jail and prison offer some type of early released programs, in this case probation and parole will briefly be discussed. Probation is a prison sentence that is suspended on the condition that the offender follow certain prescribed rules and commit no further crime (Seiter, 2008). Parole is similar to probation except that it is after a period of incarceration, which involved determinate and indeterminate sentencing (Seiter, 2008). The other types of prison sentencing include mandatory minimums, three-strike laws, and truth-in-sentencing (Wilson, 2001). The only difference is that a parole board allows convicts to serve the remainder of their term in society under supervision and strict limitations (Wilson, 2001). In summary both jails and prisons should strive to provide as much educational, health, and counseling opportunities as possible to reduce the likelihood of recidivism. Second, funding for the jail and prison systems will be briefly discussed.

Over the years, many theorists have been considering alternative type sanctions for offenders, because of the ever growing issue of prison overcrowding of our jails at state, local and federal level. The use of alternative type sanctions seem to be growing, and is getting a second look from many prisons, and jails as an option for some offender. Also, “in addition to relieving jail and prison overcrowding, the level of risk many offenders represent is too much for probation, but

[In an effort to reduce crime rates over the last two decades, there was a push to increase arrests, and length of incarceration of criminal offenders. Due to the increase in numbers of offenders incarcerated and the length of their sentences the prison has an increasing population of elderly offenders. In light of this situation, the need to provide medical care for this population has become increasingly more expensive than anyone anticipated. Therefore, there has been a great deal of attention to what is known as compassionate release. In order to evaluate the arguments for and against this legislation we will look at the arguments on both sides, what values underlie each position, how medical release fits into the discussion, and alternatives to the problem.

In the United States of America, federal and state government have implemented new guidance in an attempt to reduce crime, correctional overcrowding, and achieve a greater fairness for adults criminal sentencing. Intermediate sanctions in corrections are forced by the criminal justice system. It is used as an alternate punishments, however, the offender are less likely to serve in prison or jail due to the overcrowding as well as the different crimes committed. For example, Lindsay Lohan was charged for driving under the influence in 2007, she was given remedial counseling and an electronic bracelet to monitor her activities, however, the child celebrity chose to violate her probation with an alcohol level of 0.03 percent, which led her serving a 90 days jail sentence (Duke, 2010).

First, the impact of the age of mass incarceration and the paradox of probation theory. The United States has been steadily massing incarcerating for four decades. In the meantime, researchers have suggested using probation as a way to bring down the prison population, but studies show that probation will increase punishments and increase the prison population. Correspondingly, college students started to lose interest in the probation field for the reason that most of the government resources were being invested in the prison system. Phelps (2013), states,

Parole is the release of a prisoner by the decision of a paroling authority (Mackenzie, 2002). The offender is then required to remain under the observation of a parole officer who monitors the offender 's obedience with rules of conduct that are imposed by the parole board (Mackenzie, 2002). Parole is actually regarded as a back-end program that works in conjunction with the community (Mackenzie, 2002). Parole is actually similar to probation in that it follows a term of incarceration (Mackenzie, 2002). There are specific conditions which parole can be applied. Violations of these rules may result in re-imprisonment forced to return to prison to serve out the length of their original sentence from the date of release (Mackenzie, 2002). There are currently over five million people who are being supervised by the criminal justice system in the United States (Bureau of

The idea of sympathetic release of ill and elderly prisoners is not new. In 1994, Professor Russell published consideration of medical parole and compassionate release programs of district and fifty states of Columbia. Only three

Going back to what prisoners lose and gain when they go to prison, the question was raised when taxpayers began to realize that prisoners get better treatment than the honest person. This was when the organ transplant situation was brought up and the process is incredibly pricey with Kenneth Pike, a convicted rapist, needing a $800,000 heart transplant. However, denying the said person of healthcare because he was in a terrible person violates the 8th Amendment and prisoners are unable to get healthcare insurance

While, the issue of the incarcerated population having the privilege of this scarce medical resources is extensively and generally approved or compelling recognition within the correctional health profession and there is a case-law supporting the matter of concern, that the statues of a person as an inmate must not preclude such person as a patient from receiving adequate care in respect to serious health needs, regardless of the cost of such treatment. They also have all the social and moral values since the law does not exempt them from citizenship (Puisis, 2006, p.23).