Incarceration: Tough On Crime Policies In The United States

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.

The corrections system has gone through the medical model, the community model, and the crime control model over the last century. In the late eighteen hundreds, the belief that incarceration itself did not reduce crime was emerging. Community based sanctions, like probation and parole, were thought to be great additions and that they would work well in conjunction with incarceration. (Wodahl, 8) Between

It is thought that punishment prevents an individual from committing a future crime, or reoffending. Despite this belief, research examining the effects of incarceration and prison conditions has demonstrated

The “get tough approach” to crime control has been prevalent since the 1960s. This approach takes the stance to a more firm and no tolerance policy against crime, hence the term “tough” in the actual title. “"Tough" crime control normally denotes more emphasis on police resources, faster apprehension of criminals, quick trials, and more severe sentences for guilty offenders” (Skoler 1971:29). The “get tough approach” emphasizes the need to arrest and punish criminals over rehabilitation and addressing the social factors that underlie criminal behavior (Barkan and Bryjak 2011). Deterrence of other criminals through severe punishments is the primary focus. The “get tough approach” of criminal justice institutions has been under scrutiny due to the outcomes that we will discuss further on. The purpose of this paper is to simply present the pros and cons that have resulted from the “get tough approach” on crime. The paper will try and remain completely unbiased to the “get tough approach” and solely focus on results that have come from said approach. We will begin by discussing the background and history of the “get tough approach” and what led to its development. We will then discuss things such as incarceration rates (US Department of Justice), crime rates (Dilulio 1995) juveniles in prison (Hinton 2015), policies that have been implemented (Shephard 2002), correctional costs, and destabilized urban neighborhoods (Barkan & Bryjak 2011; Black 2007; Mauer 2006) that result

As mentioned in American Corrections, the effects can be separated into three categories, namely, the effect on crime, the effect on society, and the effect on the pursuit of justice (Clear 6). Data shows that the “experiment” has had little effect on crime itself. The crime rate has not significantly changed since the 1970s, when the “experiment” began, so it does not

The United States prison population has grown seven-fold over the past forty years, and many Americans today tend to believe that the high levels of incarceration in our country stem from factors such as racism, socioeconomic differences, and drugs. While these factors have contributed to the incarceration rate present in our country today, I argue that the most important reason our country has such a high incarceration rate is the policy changes that have occurred since the 1970s. During this time, the United States has enacted policy changes that have produced an astounding rise in the use of imprisonment for social control. These policy changes were enacted in order to achieve greater consistency, certainty, and severity and include sentencing laws such as determinate sentencing, truth-in-sentencing, mandatory minimum sentencing, and three strikes laws (National Research Council 2014). Furthermore, I argue that mandatory sentencing has had the most significant effect on the incarceration rate.

If mass incarceration is a cancer of society, mandatory minimum sentencing laws are the tumors that exacerbate society’s condition. These mandatory minimum sentencing laws require a certain length of prison time if

Reiman and Leighton comprehensively begin the discussion of crime by outlining their main objectives, establishing the immediate problems surrounding crime control in America, and setting the groundwork for their premises. In recent years, the crime rate in the United States has declined. This decline is generally attributed to ‘tough on crime’ and mass incarceration policies, but the authors are quick to assert that other variables--economic, social-- are greater contributors to this decrease, with the ‘imprisonment binge’ only actually contributing a small amount to the decline. These strict crime enforcement policies might have a small impact on crime prevention, but criminologists are concerned with the potential effect such policies might have on criminal justice procedures--promoting profit rather than safety-- and endangering citizens’ rights (particularly those considered minorities).

One of the causes of prison overcrowding comes about because of the expansion rate of arrest and more noteworthy utilization of detainment. The criminal justice system is detaining more individuals to prison for a more drawn out period than the prison limit permits. The prison populace relies on upon the quantity of admissions and the quantity of release in a watched period. As indicated by admission and release information, drifts in the length of sentencing can be watched. Therefore, the reason behind the expansion in prison populace can be distinguished by breaking down each of the three patterns, the quantity of admissions, the quantity of releases, and the length of prison sentences (Novak, 2009). A large proportion of the prison populace is comprised of past convicts with new wrongdoing after they are discharged just to end up detained again. The offenders also may have committed a new crime that was recently established by the penal code while serving on parole. The expansion of criminal offenses to the penal code implies that offenders can

Today, more than 2 million Americans are incarcerated in either a state facility, federal correctional facility or a local installation (Batey,2002). Due to longer sentences, incorporating harsh sentencing guidelines, and mandatory minimum punishments (NeSmith,2015). With each inmate costing taxpayers an average of $30,000 annually. The Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994 were increased sentences for a broad range of offenses, as well as establishing federal penalties for most murders and a large number of other crimes already subject to state law (Batey,2002). In addition to reducing the discretion of state judicial systems; as well as 85 percent of sentence satisfaction and establishing a mandatory life sentence for those convicted of three serious violent crimes or drug offenses (NeSmith,2015). .

Until the early 1970s, the sentencing of crime convicts was based on the principle of rehabilitation of juvenile and adult offenders. Legislatures set maximum authorized sentences for various types of crimes and judges decided on the prison term or probation or fines. Correctional officials and parole boards had the powers to reduce the time served for good behavior and release prisoners early. In the 1980s and 1990s, the emphasis shifted to deterrence by imposing mandatory minimum sentences for certain types of crime, heavier sentences for habitual offenders and the “three-strike” rule for felony convictions. Public opinion supported these changes in the belief that prison terms were just retribution for crimes and incarceration kept criminals off the streets (Mackenzie, 2001).

As discussed above, the rapid growth in the number of prisoners results to overcrowding of the prisons, increasing the cost liability of a nation. However, the emergence of intermediate sanctions alternative in the criminal justice system has significantly reduced the number of inmates in the prisons. As affirmed by Neubauer & Fradella (2015), the system of punishing the law breakers outside the jail has maintained a reasonable number of inmates, making the states to allocate minimal budget for the correction and rehabilitation

Incapacitation Theory is described to be the theory of Locking Up The Wicked. The Incapacitation Theory assumes that if we lock up every person that commits a crime and throw away the key, then it would be a better world with less criminals on the streets. But would it be better to lock up all the predators out there? Or would it cost America more to keep them locked up? Within the Incapacitation Theory there are two main points which are Selective Incapacitation and Collective Incapacitation. Selective Incapacitation is when the court system makes an attempt to determine which criminals are going to continue to commit crimes and to keep them locked up. Collective Incapacitation is used to describe locking up all criminals who commit certain

Because of the increase in crime in America, the public has demanded an increase in the amount of protection received from police. This increase in police protection has increased the incarceration level by numerous amounts within the last ten years. The number of inmates incarcerated in America is a direct cause of the policing that is going on in the streets of American cities. The method of policing has a tremendous impact on the outcome of the situation, meaning the type of policing determines the amount of arrests mad and the amount of inmates incarcerated. The historical pattern of prison sentencing has always shown that the offenders almost always served a much shorter sentence than

Since the early 1970's, there has been a significant increase in the incarcerating system. Today, study shows that 1 in 100 adult Americans are behind the bars (B.J.S.). On the other hand, the increase in the use of imprisoning system does not mean that there is an increase in crime. From the research of B.J.S., it signifies that in early 1970's population were around 300,000, while the population in 2006 was over 2.3 million. In the United States of America, each state has their diverse policy to deter the crime rate. On the