Correctional System : The Criminal Justice System Is Broken

The Criminal Justice system has been broken because it is very bias towards minorities. There is a lot of discrimination from policing, to trial, to sentencing. The war on drugs and the war on poverty defines the difference because the criminal justice system has always been harsh with minorities. There are more than two million people in prisoned today. This is a multi-million business in America and officers had imprisoned people for insignificant things, such as passing the traffic light, and for not stopping at a stop sign. This is when the community feel betrayed by the police, they do not trust them anymore. People’s lives become miserable and many times the consequences people face is to commit suicide.

Today our Justice system is not perfect, but nothing is. Everything has its pros and cons, its ups and downs and its strengths and flaws. There are things that we can appreciate from how our Justice system is ran and of course there is some that we would like to change. I believe that our Justice system works but that there are things we could change or fix to make it even better.

The 13th Amendment to the American Constitution is celebrated and known as the amendment to end slavery. The amendment provides that, “Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction” (U.S. Constitution, Amendment 13). What is often overlooked is that this amendment abolishes slavery, unless you are a criminal. After the Civil War, this loophole was wildly used by slave owners, as they would convict African Americans of minor crimes to then use them as slaves again. This exception to the amendment is continually used today in the American prison system. The Criminal Justice System in America contains significant flaws that are detrimental to society. A few of these flaws lie within the actions and ideals of the prison system, the policies and laws surrounding the criminal justice system, and the American Legislative Exchange Council.

American prison systems encompass all three spheres of criminal justice: law enforcement, judiciary, corrections. Within this system, a massive problem exists. America is known as the “mass incarceration nation” (Hamilton, 2014, p. 1271). Comparatively, the United States encompasses the majority of global prisoners, yet the population is nowhere near that proportion. Just how “free and equal” is this system? Since Gideon v. Wainwright, the racial divide in the criminal justice system has grown, which is contradictory to its intentions. The American criminal justice system has failed to provide the justice and protections it promises. There are many injustices caused by the mass incarceration of American citizens, especially those of minority descent. More harm is done by incarceration to the individual, their community, and the nation, than if other forms of justice were used. The criminal justice system is divided, with racial and income disparities defining the nation in way never intended.

From the article titled “The Punishment Imperative : The Rise and Failure of Mass Incarceration in America” by Todd Clear, and Natasha Frost, it goes into full detail on why the incarceration rate is failing. America incarcerates way more people that far exceeds the rate of our top allies. “With just under ten million people incarcerated in prisons and jails worldwide, America incarcerated more than one-fifth of the world’s total prison population.” (The Punishment Imperative: The Rise and Failure of Mass Incarceration in America, Page 17) The United States now is in the lead in the world of incarceration, that beats countries like Russia, Rwanda, St. Kitts & Nevis, and Cuba, and the country has four times the rate of European nations. Maintaining the prisons came with a staggering price. In 2006, jurisdictions would spend around $68 billion on correctional supervision. They went from spending from $9 billion in 1982 to an 660 percent increase of $68 billion in 2006. Around the same time period, direct judicial expenditures has increased by 503 percent and the policing expenditures increased by 420 percent. The huge majority of the correctional dollars, with was around 90 percent, went to stabilize mass incarceration. “With a national average annual price tag of almost $29,000 per person per year of incarceration, it cost taxpayers at least ten times more to incarcerate a person than it would have cost to maintain him or her under supervision in the community.” (The Punishment Imperative: The Rise and Failure of Mass Incarceration in America, Page 21) In general, this is an issue because the taxpayers are forced to pay a lot of money to maintain a person in prison. Locking up a serious violent offender is justified, however, for thousands of lower-level inmates, it costs taxpayers more than preventing

In the past four decades, there has been a staggering increase in the United States prison population at the local and state level. Currently there are 2.2 million people in the nation’s prisons and jails that has added up to a 500% increase over 40 years (The sentencing project). The cause of this prison growth is a variety of laws and punitive sentencing policies that were initiated starting in the early 1970’s. Policies such as harsh drug penalties for non-violent crimes, Mandatory Minimum Maximum sentences and the Three Strikes law have all contributed to America’s current problem of mass incarceration.

During the period of the Great Depression (1920-1939), the criminal justice system reflected the same amount of struggle as the economy. At this point in America, there were many flaws within the structure of the criminal justice system. Inequality, developing system, and harsh realities of organized crime beat down the structure and credibility within trials. The need for reformation was evident. Minorities during this time period struggled overall for the same equal rights that the white majority was granted. African Americans were most called out on due to the fact they represent a different background, culture and have a unilateral political viewpoint. Although under the influence of the law, it was no different in court, when it came

In a perfect world, there would not be prisons due to the lack of crime. This is not a perfect world, and many of the prisons are overcrowded. The penitentiaries are full with a mixture of violent and nonviolent prisoners. By putting nonviolent offenders in prisons with violent offender increases the likelihood of them being associated with gangs and decrease their availability of getting rehabilitation (Smith-Heisters, 2008). The majority of the offenders are nonviolent and is in prison for drug usage. The federal system was unable to produce the rights given in the 6th and 14th Amendments and medical help to the prisoners getting out on parole because of overcrowding (Smith-Heisters, 2008). “77% of the growth in intake to America’s state and federal prisons between 1978

Have you heard the phrase "prisons are over populated!"? Statistics show 21.2% of low level drug offenders, that are incarcerated, do not have any current or prior violence in their records, no involvement in sophisticated criminal activity and no prior commitment. (USDOJ) Could this be the problem of prisons being over populated? There are many factors that need to be considered when looking for other possible methods of dealing with non-violent drug offenders. Some lawmakers believe the only way to deal with these offenders is to lock them up for long periods of time, while other feel the solution lies within treatment facilities and expanded social programs. With both sides having valid points we must then evaluate what is the

We must enact policies that downscale the prison population. The best approach is to shift resources away from the incarceration and punishment of certain inmate categories, such as nonviolent drug offenders, investing instead in their rehabilitation. Though correction systems have historically favored punishment over ‘softer’ rehabilitation, most nonviolent, drug-related offenders would benefit more from rehabilitation than incarceration. Today, in great part as a consequence of the War on Drugs, our prisons house over half a million drug offenders, representing over one-half of the federal inmate population in the United States, an increase of 790 percent since 1980. It is time for new leadership on the War on Drugs which has cost billions of dollars and has caused the endangerment of inmates’ and correctional officers’ lives due to mass incarceration. Do we wish to continue being the most punitive developed country in the world? Instead of implementing mandatory

The criminal justice system has many flaws that many people believe It is broken. The first step of fixing the system is by acknowledging that the system is broken. According to the documentary Fixing the System, the increase of incarceration is due to nonviolent drug offenses. There are more drug offenses than for homicide, aggravated assault, kidnapping, immigration, sex offenses, etc., combined. The cost for incarceration has dramatically increased as people kept getting incarceration due to the nonviolent drug offenses. President George W. Bush decided that building more prisons and jails was the best way to teach the lesson of war on drugs. Although incarcerating individuals’ due drugs wasn’t helping get rid of the problem because they

The amount of people in prison is usually proportional to the amount of crime being committed. In the case of America however, non-drug related crime has remained constant, or even decreased since 1971 when the war began. There has been an increase of prisoners though, as forty years ago, thirty-eight thousand people were imprisoned for breaking drug-related laws while today, that number is over two million (Swanson). The cause of this influx of prisoners are unjustly harsh drug possession laws, some of which can land people in jail for very long periods of time. One such law is California’s three-strikes law. This law states that any felon that has committed three crimes that required a state level imprisonment shall be sentenced to a minimum of twenty-five years in jail, with a maximum of life. This law might be a great idea to keep murderers and rapists in jail, but it was found that more twenty-five-to-life sentences were meted out for possession of marijuana than for murder, rape, and kidnapping combined (Patten). Our prisons have become so overpopulated, the U.S. has more people in prison for drug-related crimes than the entire E.U. (European Union) has prisoners. This is despite the fact that the population of the U.S. is forty percent smaller than that of the E.U. (Patten). One solution to keep prison populations low would to be to issue a fine

Eventually, the government is going to realize that they are wasting money and putting people’s lives in danger. Overcrowded prisons are a threat to everyone involved. To alleviate the situation, correctional institutions need to downsize inmate populations. I believe one of the main reasons prisons are overcrowded is due to mandatory minimum sentencing. The U.S has very strict sentencing guidelines when it comes to sentencing. According to Hooker and Hirsh, “A felony conviction generally, by law, means a term of mandatory incarceration. An accused faces mandatory sentencing if he/she has any past felony conviction, or if he/she is accused of being a repetitive offender. As to the former, any past conviction counts, no matter how old” (Berlatsky 94-95). Hooker and Hirsh follow this claim up with the perfect example, “As to the latter, one would become a repetitive offender if he were to sell a marijuana cigarette on one day, and repeat that act the next day. All these trigger mandatory sentences at conviction” (Berlatsky 95). This become somewhat of a never ending circle for such a small petty crime. Which brings me to nonviolent drug users.

Today, the United States has more people incarcerated than ever before. More than 2 million people in the United States alone are in prison, three times the amount than before there were sentencing guidelines and mandatory minimums (Bernick and Larkin). “The Federal Bureau of Prisons is overcrowded, operating at nearly 40 percent over capacity and housing a large population of non-violent drug offenders, at a significant cost to taxpayer” (Bernick and Larkin). Every year taxpayers are paying to keep inmates incarcerated. The average cost to keep one inmate in prison for a year is around $29,000. In state prisons alone, taxpayers spend over $50 billion dollars

The Unites States of America’s prison system is a flawed mess. To open the eyes of our government we must first take a stand against unlawful government decisions, and show support for the greater good of society. What are our own tax-dollars paying for, what are the flaws in the justice/prison system, why is overcrowding in prisons causing tension, and what are ways our society and government can rebuild the system that has been destroyed over the years? Most criminals in prisons are not a danger to our society because they commit crimes just to use jail as a shelter, causing the overcrowding of prisons and wasting away of what we really should be paying for.