Incarceration Of Americ The United States

According to statistical data found in the Bureau for Justice Records, there are a number of problems that most prisons in the country face. The records indicate that the number of adult federal and state inmates increased from `139% in `1980 to 260% (Walker, 1999). As a natural default, the United States of America has the highest incarceration rate in the world. This in itself brings about one of the major problems that are faced in modern incarceration which is overcrowding in most prison facilities. The number of offenders in the country has increased rapidly over time while the country prison system has not really been able to cope with this rapid increase. Prisons intended for one or two inmates are now crowded with more than fifty individuals. Because of this most prisons are overcrowded and most of the facilities available are unable to cater for the needs of all the prisoners (Siegel, 2009).

The U.S prison population rose by 700% from 1970 to 2005. A rate far outpacing that of general population growth and crime rates.

As of 2015, 2.7% of adults in the United States were under correctional control, the lowest rate since 1994, however that is still roughly 6.7 million adults (Kaeble & Glaze, 2016). While the correctional population has declined, correctional facilities in the United States are still grossly overcrowded, with many facilities at or surpassing capacity. A report in 2010 by the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation showed that on average, facilities were at 175% capacity (Brown, 2010). However, as of midnight on October 31st, 2017 the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation reported that their facilities, on average, were 132% occupied (Brown, 2017). Not only is prison overcrowding a burden on the facilities themselves, but also on the inmates. Prison overcrowding, that is, housing more inmates than the facility can humanely facilitate (Haney, 2006), places a strain on all resources throughout the correctional facility, including on the healthcare that’s offered, educational programs, and most dramatically on the physical space available to house inmates (Ekland-Olson, 1983).

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.

The United States of America is phrased by many, as being “the land of the free.” Yet, the Unites States currently has the highest per capita prison population than any other country. The United States makes up only 5% of the world’s population and of that 5%, 25% of our overall nation’s population is currently incarcerated. A few factors that attribute to our high rates of incarceration include, sentencing laws: such as mandatory- minimum sentencing, lack of initial deterrence from crime, the war on drugs and the presence of recidivism. With our ever growing incarceration rates and the cost of housing individual offenders averaging $22,000 a criminal justice agenda. Recidivism refers to a person 's relapse into criminal behavior resulting in rearrests, reconviction or return to prison with or without a new sentence during a three-year period following the prisoner 's release (National Institute of Justice.) Many programs have been implemented in our prison system to help reduce the recidivism rates. Programs such as educational/ vocational programming, reentry programs, substance abuse programs and subsidized employment are among many programs in which have been proven effective. Yet, due to costs deficits, the clock is ticking to find evidence based programs to invest in. So, the question currently being sought after is, which method is most effective in reducing recidivism rates?

Mass Incarceration is a predicament in the U.S. because in the land of the free, there are more than two million people in prison. Prisons are homes to the majority of twenty-two percent of the U.S. population. The U.S. has a massive incarceration rate, seven hundred and sixteen per every one hundred thousand. The U.S. makes five percent of the world’s population and the third country in which most people live in but number one incarcerating humans.

One of the greatest challenges currently facing the American criminal justice system is overcrowding. America has the largest prison

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

The United States is one of the largest countries in the world so high incarceration rates are expected. However, this rate has drastically increased in the past forty years, surpassing those of countries such as China, which has a population four times larger than the United States

As we all know – there are tons of social issues within the entire world that Criminal Justice Practitioners deal with, most likely, on a daily basis. One of the many social issues I’ve chosen is Prison Overcrowding.

Many inmates are incarcerated in prison for years and sometimes decades, then released back into society with little education or training. Studies have found that 19 percent of inmates are entirely illiterate, and 75 percent are functionally illiterate and read at a 4th-grade level. Therefore, without education, vocational training, or the ability to secure employment, many formerly incarcerated people maladapt to society and return to crime and prison. Thus, a vicious cycle of re-incarceration called inmate recidivism is created.

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.

College programs for inmates were largely defunded in the 1990’s as part of the “tough on crime” era. Since then prison populations have exploded along with the costs associated with housing convicted criminals. Inmates are often released with not marketable skills so they resort back to a life of crime and end up returning to prison within a short time of being released. Taxpayers should pay for inmate college education to help keep them from returning to prison and saving taxpayers millions of dollars in the long run. Compared to all other nations the United States has the highest incarceration rate with one in every 99 adults in state or federal prison totaling 2.3 million people.

Prison population. Prisons in the United States have changed throughout the years and became the standard for punishment. Here in America we jail on more offenses for longer periods of time than in any other country (Deady, 2014). Our prison population has increased to over 500% in the last forty years (The Sentencing Project, 2014). A lot of this is due to the crack down on crime and the war on drugs. With the influx of inmates in our prison system we must look at what our prison

The USA has, currently, over 2.3 million people incarcerated in various kinds of prisons. We have the highest imprisonment population ratio in the world with 716 of 100,000 people in prison. This is hugely expensive too, considering just a level two prisoner costs an average $52.98. Prison overcrowding is growing at an alarming rate as well: it has become five times as large as it was 40 years ago. This issue is only going to get worse with time. A survey of 34 states reported an overall growth of 3%. While that may not seem like a lot, consider that the growth was concentrated in only a few of those surveyed. While some states may not feel the effects yet, it is only a matter of