Criminals Must Be Punished For Breaking The Laws Of The Land

This paper discusses three critical issues in the criminal justice system. It touches on the general issues of punishment philosophies, sentence decision making, and prison overcrowding and focused more specifically on the negative effects of each. Highlighted in this informational paper is the interrelated nature of the issues; each issue affects and is affected by the others. Data and information has been gathered from the FBI Uniform Crime Report, the Bureau of Justice Statistics, Amnesty International, the NAACP Legal Defense

Ever since the first prison opened in the United States in 1790, incarceration has been the center of the nations criminal justice system. Over this 200 year period many creative alternatives to incarceration have been tried, and many at a much lower cost than imprisonment. It wasn’t until the late 1980’s when our criminal justice systems across the country began experiencing a problem with overcrowding of facilities. This problem forced lawmakers to develop new options for sentencing criminal offenders.

In short the United States judicial system sends criminal offenders into the largest prison system in the world, where the increasing population forces overcrowding, widens the gap between state spending and revenue and fails to prevent recidivism; we must re-evaluate and reduce our current prison system in order to reduce state debt as well as provide inmates with livable conditions and keep them from returning to prison.

Every civilization in history has had rules, and citizens who break them. To this day governments struggle to figure out the best way to deal with their criminals in ways that help both society and those that commit the crimes. Imprisonment has historically been the popular solution. However, there are many instances in which people are sent to prison that would be better served for community service, rehab, or some other form of punishment. Prison affects more than just the prisoner; the families, friends, employers, and communities of the incarcerated also pay a price. Prison as a punishment has its pros and cons; although it may be necessary for some, it can be harmful for those who would be better suited for alternative means

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.

No matter how you look at it, the prison system within the US holds too many people without valid reason. The last decade has seen a lot of states cut down on crime while also cutting down on their prison populations. In the years between 1999 and 2012, for example, both New York and New Jersey cut their prison populations by 30%, and crime rates fell “faster than they did nationally.”

Prison Overcrowding: Prisons have become warehouses of human beings as opposed to institutions meant to provide a means to engage in restitution by delinquent individuals in society. “One necessary condition for rising incarceration rates has been the massive expansion in prison construction and capacity, without which prison populations could not have grown so dramatically” (Guetzkow & Schoon, 2015). As more prisons are being built, more delinquents are being incarcerated in order to fill them. “Prison facilities are filled 38 percent beyond rated capacity, with overcrowding being particularly acute in higher-security institutions” (Rowland, 2013).

In the 1970s and 1980s, a massive amount of inmates began fillin up the United States prison systems. This huge rate of growth in this short amount of time, has greatly contributed to the prison overcrowding that the United States faces today. In fact, the prisons are still filled to the seams. This enormous flood of inmates has made it practically impossible for prison officials to keep up with their facilities and supervise their inmates. One of the main reasons why many prisons have become overcrowded is because of states’ harsh criminal laws and parole practices (Cohen). “One in every 100 American adults is behind bars, the highest incarceration rate in the world” (Cohen). The amount of inmates in corrections systems, throughout the

Despite the large amount of criminals in prison, the crimes: murder, rape, and others has only “accounted for 10.6 percent of the total Crime Index” (Access Integrity Unit). The vast majority of criminals locked up are held on drug addiction or petty theft charges and not more serious offenses such as murder or assault. To put it simply, the cells that were built with taxpayers’ dollars holds 89.4 percent of criminals that are of no real threat to society. While the jail cells continue to fill up with occupants that has no business being behind bars, the general public will not feel any safer until new laws are passed to insure lesser offenders can get the help they so desperately need.

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.

Prisons and jails hold some similar characteristics but are completely different models in which they serve in the criminal justice system. Some of the types of crimes that America faces today are: violent crimes, property, white collar or organized crime, and public order crimes (Worrall, 2008). The criminal justice system sets the regulations and policies of how an offender will be held accountable for their inappropriate actions. The criminal justice system is a process that takes time and money from society. The following information will briefly discuss the main purposes for the jail and prison systems, which will focus on the length of sentencing, funding sources, and private sector ownership. Let’s begin by explaining the length of

Prison Overcrowding is one of America’s most critical issues in the Criminal Justice system. Just as the name states, the problem is insufficient jail space – for which the solution would be to build more facilities. What causes this problem? There are a lot of people in the world that believe putting all crime doers in jail is the best resolution. Let’s be honest here

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.

When it comes to prison overcrowding, many factors cause it to occur. Part of the overcrowding can be attributed both to specific policies. For instance, the “War on Drugs” has enacted harsher penalties for drug violations, directly increasing the number incarcerated. Part of this policy includes mandatory sentences, which indirectly affect the overcrowding. More people are incarcerated for longer periods, leading to conditions so inhumane that in 2011, the Supreme Court declared one prison violated the Eighth Amendment. While policies are partially responsible for overcrowding in prisons, criminal behavior also needs to be taken into account. The USA has one of the highest recidivism rates in the world—within five years of release from state prison, law enforcement rearrests 76.6% of inmates.. Many are arrested for violating parole, and some go on to commit entirely new crimes. Apparently, there is little motivation to staying out of prison, what with the minimal rehabilitation programs and general stigma laid on criminals in the work force. This makes the prison system, in itself, ineffectual, and the attempts to decrease inmate population similarly pointless.