Expanding Funding For Alternatives For Incarceration Essay

The policy options that will be discussed are establishing efficient and beneficial rehabilitation systems in prisons, establishing educational systems in prisons, eliminating private prisons, and reducing mandatory sentencing laws. These are a few of the many ideas and solutions that the United States can take in order to reduce its high incarceration rate.

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.

Authors in this article from the University of California observe and focus on the risks and rates involved in people that have a mental disorder and correlate it with incarceration as well as people with re-incarceration. While performing these studies researchers found an alarming number of people incarcerated had a severe mental illness and substance abuse issues. Much of the knowledge in numbers of people with a mental illness are brought from a correctional view, but researchers here try to also focus on numbers of people in the public mental health system as well.

The way the criminal justice system should handle crimes has always been a debated subject. For over the last forty years, ever since the war on drugs, there are more policies made to be “tough on crime”. From then, correctional systems have grown and as people are doing more crimes, there are plenty of punishments for them. In the mid 1970’s, rehabilitation was the main concern for the criminal justice system. It was common that when someone was convicted of a crime, they would be sentenced to prison but there would also be diagnosed treatments to help them as well. Most likely, they would have committed a crime due to psychological problems. When they receive treatment in prison, they can be healed and would not go back to their wrong lifestyle they had lived before. As years have gone by, people thought that it was better to take a more punitive stance in the criminal justice system. As a result of the turnaround of this more punitive criminal justice system, the United States now has more than 2 million people in prisons or jails--the equivalent of one in every 142 U.S. residents--and another four to five million people on probation or parole. The U.S. has a higher percentage of the

About one in three state prisons 1 of 4 federal prisons and 1 of 6 jail inmates have a mental health problem and did not receive treatment since admission. I believe that we should bring or make a facility for those with mental disorders, not because they don’t know from right or wrong it is just that they need to be paid more attention too than a regular inmate, being mentally ill already is enough for that person imagine ill and caged patients not receiving correct treatment. The estimate of 56 percent of state prisoners, 45 percent federal prisoners, and 64 percent of jail inmates have a mental health problem; one of the most common health problems is autism and schizophrenia. It is horrible how in these times mentally ill people are turned into inmates. We also changed hospitals into jails and prisons. Now mostly ever homeless on the street has a mental

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

Clyde is your average American; he is a hardworking family man who tries to do everything in his power to make his family live happily. Due to the recent economic plunge he has lost his job and his wife is not making enough to feed their family. Feeling worthless and desperate to help his suffering family, Clyde decided to rob his neighbor. It was an unarmed theft of under $250; unfortunately Clyde was caught and sentenced to serve 1 year in the County Prison. Clyde never wanted to do it and was very uncomfortable doing it, but he thought it would help his family and allow them to go one more month with food on the table. Even though there are alternative forms of rehabilitation that would have kept him out of prison and been

Since the tough-on-crime era began in the 1980s, the California prison system and parolee population have grown tenfold. This is in great part due to the three strikes law that passed in 1994. This law made it a requirement for any offender convicted of a felony with two previous felonies to go to prison for a minimum of twenty five years. This law sent many people to prison for longer sentences due to non-violent drug offenses, when in actuality they should have been sentenced to rehab. Prison overcrowding is an important topic that all Americans should care about, since according to The Bureau of Justice Statistics, over ninety-five percent of all prison inmates will be released at some point, with over eighty-five percent of them being placed under parolee supervision. Of this population, sixty-five percent suffer from substance abuse issues and meet the need for treatment for their addiction. Drug and alcohol abuse, specifically drug abuse, and crime are inextricably related. Unfortunately, the majority of those released from prison who suffer from addiction issues are not treated while incarcerated, and as a result end up back in prison.

In assignment one, I stated that substance abuse disorders can cause barriers for ex-prisoners reentering back into the community because research shows that “individuals who are released from prison are more likely to encounter difficulties with substance abuse, as 73.6% individuals in the criminal justice system have drug and alcohol involved with their criminal behavior. “Researchers found that 80% of individuals incarcerated in state prison have serious substance abuse problems. Substance abuse has a significant role in recidivism upon release from prison and desire to use substances or craving of substance was the most common barrier to reentry” (Phillips and Spencer 127-128). In order to decrease substance abuse in prison reentry and create defensible solutions for ex-offenders, the criminal justice must create incarceration-based therapeutic programs for adults that will use an in-depth drug treatment program model for treating ex-offenders who are addicted to drugs, and change the ex-offender’s attitude, perception, and behavior linked to substance abuse. The program will aim to stop the ex-offender from using drugs and create will power inside the ex-offender not to back track into a life of drug

The United States criminal justice system has been continuously increasing incarceration among individuals who suffer from a sever mental illness. As of 2007 individuals with severe mental illness were over twice as likely to be found in prisons than in society (National Commission of Correctional Health Care, 2002, as cited in Litschge &Vaughn, 2009). The offenses that lead to their commitment in a criminal facility, in the majority of cases, derive from symptoms of their mental illness instead of deviant behavior. Our criminal justice system is failing those who would benefit more from the care of a psychiatric rehabilitation facility or psychiatric hospital by placing them in correctional facilities or prisons.

People in The United States have been affected by the prison system, it has saved many lives, but on the other hand, people have prosecuted for minor crimes, to end up spending a lot of time in jail, which breaks apart families for far too long, it also creates a big rift between the people of this fine nation and their distrust of the law. Back in the 1980s, President Ronald Reagan has issued a law that has cut funding for the mental institutions in the United states as called the deinstitutionalization of mental health, and to show ways of how we can bring our mental health system into place. Also in the same era laws have been put in place to put harsher laws on drug offenders called mandatory minimum sentencing, some people like non-violent, first-time drug offender are being treated the same way as a drug lord, and a way that we can fix that is push laws in congress to loosen minimum sentencing. Not to forget to mention the death penalty, how tax payers are wasting our money on keep prisoners on death row. Having a poor mental health system, strict mandatory minimum sentencing, racial bias in our prisons, and death penalty laws has led people to enter our prison system wrongfully. By fixing those rules we can help our society grow, and achieve greatness by doing right to our prison system.

Therefore, if we reduce the overcrowding rate, what are we going to do with all the criminals not headed to jail or prison? Well, that brings us to step four: realizing the benefits of the alternatives to incarceration. Because building prisons puts a terrible strain on most state’s budgets, taxpayers have been more willing to consider programs that might cost less- as long as they also control and punish crimes appropriately. Alternatives saves the taxpayers money along with strengthening families and communities by keeping them together and allowing criminals to contribute to the community like paying taxes and getting a job.(Alternatives, 2) 77% of adults believe alternatives are the best way to deal with non-violent and non-serious offenders. Alternative promote good behavior by advertising the possibility of “good-time credits” which allow prisoners to reduce their sentence with good behavior. (Overcrowding, 1) These types of benefits will surely make an impact on our society for the better.

No matter how many times they went to jail they still come out and do the same things they were doing that landed them in prison in the first place. It doesn’t necessarily make them a bad person, well for some at least. Yes it leads to crime and many people think that sending them to jail it’ll automatically cure them but that’s not always the case. Don’t get me wrong there is those people who would turn their life around while in prison but there is others who won’t. According to Peter Ninemire a therapist/ drug abuse counselor, most prisons in the United States don’t attempt to treat or cure addiction. Fewer than 10 percent of inmates receive the treatment services they need. A 2006 report shows that 95 percent of drug offenders who don’t receive treatment in prison or outside after their release from prison relapse into drug use, 70 percent return to prison. This obviously shows they do not get the help they need. So even if they send addicts to prison they won’t get the help they need. However for non violent drug offenders prison gives them a chance to reflect and hopefully change their ways. While Ninemire was in prison he seen many drug addicts come to prison and leave in worse shape years later. This goes to show we need to find better methods to treat and help drug

Offenders may face social, financial and personal challenges, such as mental illness or substance abuse or addiction, that make it difficult for them to avoid returning to criminal activity (Twelfth United Nations Congress on Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice , 2010). Essential features of a broader crime prevention effort include providing skills training, education, treatment programs and psychological support for offenders in the community and for prisoners, and establishing programs to assist offenders released from prison in becoming law-abiding citizens. Research shows that rehabilitation programs yield better results when implemented in community settings. Strategies should include increasing the effectiveness of education, vocational training, social reintegration assistance and rehabilitation programs offered to prisoners and of community reintegration and supervised release programs (Twelfth United Nations Congress on Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice , 2010). Vocational training, education and rehabilitation programs comprise a key component of the majority of the prison reform programs implemented by

Drugs are a huge problem in the US there are hundreds of people currently addicted to drugs in some states alone and we are trying to solve this problem and whenever a drug addict is caught they are usually sent to prison, tons of people sent to prison when it's not even the best option. Currently, people are completely unaware that rehab is a much better option than prison for drug offenders because it is both economically superior and helps addicts reintegrate into society.