Incarceration In America

The criminal justice system focuses more on criminalization and incarceration than it does on rehabilitation. The United States of America wins the award for the highest incarceration rate in the world with over 2.3 million people in correctional facilities. America itself contains only about five percent of the world population, but accounts for twenty-five percent of the world’s prisoners (American Civil Liberties Union). With a longstanding history of mass incarceration and

Is incarceration the best way to deal with criminals? In the article written by Michael K. Williams, “America’s Mass Incarceration Habit Needs a Serious Fix,” this issue, among others, are tackled. He shares a personal experience and startling statistics to outline the reality that is prison. Through the use of rhetorical appeal, we delve into the mind of the writer and learn why incarceration is not an invaluable tool for non-violent criminals. We also explore racial disparities and begin to see why prison should be discarded as a form of punishment for nonviolent offenses. I agree with the author, America’s addiction to throwing people in jail needs treatment.

The United States is the world leader in both positive and negative arenas. As a nation, we are leading the world in the number of incarcerated individuals. While the ethnic composition of each state will vary, documentation shows that “African Americans are incarcerated in state prisons at a rate that is 5.1 % the imprisonment of whites.” (Nellis, 1) Consequently, most sentences are issued at the state level and not the federal level. In our attempt to be tough on crime and rid our nation of her drug problem and criminal action, we have created a new more pressing issue, an unethical system of law and society.

Most taxpayers and residents of communities aren’t aware of how beneficial it can be to lock up a reduced amount nonviolent criminals. The argument of incarcerating less nonviolent offenders originated in the 1970s, with increasing public concern about the threat of crime and many becoming skeptical about how effective rehabilitation is, Americans started focusing on some other goals of the prison system, such as retribution and public safety. They argue crime measures, such as mandatory minimum sentences and truth in sentencing laws, are keeping minor offenders in prison for too long and at great expense to the taxpayers. Advocates of harsh sentencing laws counter that they are necessary as a solution to lenient judges. David Masci, a CQ

Researchers posit that with the minimal crime deterrence effects of lengthy prison sentences and the excessive cost and individual expenses of imprisonment, state and federal criminal justice politicians should consider changing existing policies to decrease the rate of

My educational background serves as a great foundation and asset of knowledge to contribute to this position. I completed my Bachelors of Arts in Sociology at Morehouse College. As a part of our curriculum, I studied various concepts of Criminal Justice, Psychology, Deviant Behavior, Crime Trends, Demography, and Professional Communication to name a few. As a student, my research focused on cross-sectional studies of the disproportionately high rates of incarceration among

The criminal justice system is undergoing a significant change in the twenty-first century. The focus of our criminal justice system used to be on punitive principles. However, our criminal justice system is diverting towards being focused on criminal rights. When society was focused on the crime control method (restorative justice) the overall population was willing to give up certain freedoms to produce massive conviction rates against felons. John Worrall (2015) states this idea by comparing the idea of the Crime Control method to an assembly line. Worrall states, “The criminal process should be automatic, predictable, and in uniform. In other words, every criminal should be treated the same, with minimal variations in terms of change and sentences” (pg. 14). However, our society is diverting away from the concept of crime control and being redirected towards

Why does America lock so many people up? The United States has about five percent of the world’s population and has an incarceration rate of 714 per 100,000 residents. In large part, the incarceration rate is the result of the “war on drugs” and long mandatory minimum sentences. In Thinking About Crime, the author explores the reasons for the high incarceration rates of the United States. Michael Tonry contends that the logical reasons, i.e., increases in crime or changes in crime rates, is wrong. Crime and imprisonment comparisons in the United States with similar countries reveals that increases in crime or changes in crime rates are not valid. Overall crime rates in the 1990s, were not higher than those of western countries, however,

The criminal legal system has an effect on the life of every American, and it is therefore of vital public interest to facilitate it functioning optimally. This can only be accomplished with a more comprehensive understanding of this system. Building on the work of Martin and Cohn (2004) and Wu, Lake and Cao (2015), this study sought to better understand the system through the administration of a self-report survey. This survey measured participant Attitudes Toward the Criminal Legal System (ATCLS) and Belief in a Just World (BJW), in addition to collecting demographic information. The sample included 221 participants from Southern California, including 102 males and 119 females. There were limitations, including the use of a

According to Professor Joan Petersilia’s 2011 paper, published by the National Institute of Justice, the United States now has the highest incarceration rate of any free nation. As a proportion of its population, the United States incarcerates five times more people than Britain, nine times more than Germany, and 12 times more than Japan. Starting in the 1970s through the 2000s, the number of Unites States citizens serving prison terms was on the rise. This was likely a result of stiffer penalties implemented by lawmakers due to the increased crime rates in the 1960s. (Lopez, 2016) This trend of more and longer incarcerations continued through the 2000s even though the crime rate began to drop in the 1990s. The United States is now turning from longer prison terms to rehabilitation as a means of crime

When looking at the history of criminal punishment in the United States, you can see many different approaches that have changed over time connected to the social and political changes (Gollwitzer and Keller, 2010). These changes have increased programs for offenders and victims and over time decreased these programs as well. These programs for reducing the amount of recidivism in the criminal justice systems have also met their counterparts in punishment in the hard on crime programs.

The purpose of this paper has several different agendas. Firstly, I will describe a firsthand experience of the justice system through the eyes of a friend of mine, whom I recently had the fortunate opportunity to sit down and interview him for his full story. Secondly, I briefly will examine the current justice system, using my friends experience. And finally, I will expound on some of my opinions of the current justice system after listening to my friends story, and discuss some of the new insight I received while doing this paper along with the readings provided in my class, 'Intro to Criminal Justice '. My friends name is Marshall Ward, he was a former inmate for less than a year as a result of him finding himself in the 'wrong place at the wrong time '. I also want to add that perhaps him being with the wrong crowd did not help his case at all. Marshall is a former co-worker of mine and we have managed to stay in touch over the years since my husband and I have moved out of state. I interviewed him via Skype last week, asking him not only for his side of the story alone, but to also listen to his views about the current justice system. I asked him if he felt it was an effective system, and what things could be changed for the better. I also took note on what he felt needed to be changed.

    Throughout history, the criminal justice has had different ideologies. Back when the first Americans settled their system was based on Mens Reas (guilty mind) and now it is based on the mindset of “get tough on crime” (The Evolution, n.d, para. 3 and 8). As the ideologies of this system have changed, the purpose has remained the same. The purpose is to control crime and to penalize the guilty. Flaws can often be found in this system especially if they accuse someone of a wrong crime, don’t give them a fair trial, people plead guilty because they cannot make bail, and so on (Johnson, 2014, para. 7). Through these flaws, people view this system as being corrupt and ultimately end up not believing in the system. The criminal justice system plays a vital role in our country today and it needs help to not follow along the path of corruption.

To start, prison time for lower-level crimes make up half the prison population and is one of the many causes for mass incarceration. The sentencing project shows that 91.8% of the Federal prison population in 2015 were for drug, property, or public order offenses, with the drug offenses being at 49.5%. In State prisons, for these same offenses, the prison population make up 46.3%. Violent crime offenses for Federal prison population was 7.4% compared to State prison population, which was at 52.9% (The Sentencing Project, 2017). The empirical data alone shows that if we can

As of recent, the criminal justice system has adopted a tough-on-crime dogma which has narrowed their use of discretion and their actions are now influenced by having to take the least controversial approach to punishment. This, in turn, causes the general assembly to support more severe responses to mildly severe crimes so of course, this makes alternative or intermediate penalties less appealing. In the United States, the number of incarcerated people is alarmingly higher than any other nation, so much so that only the number of people incarcerated for nonviolent crimes is more than other countries’ total prison population. In his article How to Fix Overcrowded Jails on the Stanford Business School of Education website, author Lee Simmons declared on March of 2016 that over 60% of jail inmates nationwide have not yet been convicted of any crime, [therefore] it costs taxpayers $17 billion a year to keep them behind bars.