Incarceration of Men, Women, and Juveniles
Prison populations have been on the raise since the early 1970s. Today we incarcerate over 2 million men, women and juveniles in the various correctional facilities around the country. These facilities can range from local jails or detention facilities to the new so called "Supermax" prisons. Conditions can also vary across the spectrum for these different correctional institutions. Each type of inmate has his or her own challenges when faced with incarceration. Many factors play into determining "the experience" they have. Age and sex are one of the things that determine what type of institution you are committed to. Adult male prisoners are committed to adult male prisons.
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It is basically like throwing the sheep to the lions. There is just no way that this is a good use of our criminal justice system. Juveniles should be kept in their own facilities to the maximum extent possible where they can receive the treatment that just may lead them back to being productive members of society. Even though there are some of the same issues in juvenile facilities as there are in adult facilities, such as overcrowding, prisoner assaults, and custodial abuse. There are systems in place to monitor them and deal with the problems. When these things go on in adult prisons there most often is the attitude of callousness, whereby problems are looked at as part of the system, a kind of "who cares about the inmate" attitude. Adult male prisoners are subjected to harsh conditions across the country. The physical conditions that you would see on the old prison movies like "Alcatraz" are not so prevalent any more. For the most part all of these old prisons have been replaced or modernized. There still remain some issues of decaying facilities but predominantly the harsh conditions suffered by inmates today largely come from their treatment. Treatment by their fellow inmates and guards is where the abuses occur. The underlying issue to some of these abuses is the overcrowding we are experiencing in prisons across the United States. These overcrowded prisons and the tight budgets of corrections agencies force more and more
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.
If we simply send juveniles through the adult justice system it might make them worse individuals. For instance, since their minds are still growing, by being around worse criminals they may pick on their criminal traits.
After reading about the population of females in correction facilities, I came across the issue of incarcerating mothers. “Approximately 7 in 10 women under correctional sanction have minor children” (women offenders pg.7). Before reading this chapter, I have never put any importance to the challenge of sending mothers to prison. For the most part, I believe that judges and juries should consider the “motherhood” as a mitigating circumstance during a sentence. However, the age of the child and the crime should also play a role in the type of sentence given to a woman.
The trend of African American males between the ages of 25 and 29 has seen a dramatic increase of incarceration. Attention has been focusing on areas of housing, education, and healthcare but the most prominent problem for African American males is the increase in the incarceration rate. African American males between the ages of 25 and 29 incarceration rate has been thought, by many, to be caused by economic factors such as under employment or unemployment, poor housing, lack of education, and lack of healthcare. Yet, others believe it is due to the imbalance of minorities within the criminal justice system, such as judges, lawyers, and lawmakers.
To be able to discuss the issue of the inmate sub-cultures in prison I will first have to discuss what subcultures are and major reasons that they form. First of all the term subculture in general is kind of like a small culture within and not always accepted by members of a larger one known as a society. Societies as a whole are very large and contain many individuals within them, and let us face it it is human nature to group together or congregate with individuals that have similar interests. This causes the whole to split off into smaller groups and this process is how subcultures form; however, if you eliminate certain elements
As the article mentions it seems that women who are incarcerated are more likely than men to have neurological, biological or psychological abnormalities (Schwartz J. et al., Pg 16). This means that women who are committing similar offenses as men tend to be at a greater risk of suffering from some sort of mental illness. Another important point in the article that was mention is that many women who become addicted to illegal substance tend to be at a higher risk of committing burglary, and theft in order to continue to gather money for drugs.
true of females. The incarceration rate of females has risen more than the male rate, although it is much less likely for women to be incarcerated. Those raised by single mothers and who are raised in homes where someone has been incarcerated are also risk factors for future incarceration.
Additionally, isolating juveniles from their usual day to day life is a terrible invasion of the benefit to opportunity, in a couple of people's perspective. Every individual has the benefit to look for after his or her own particular life. To youths, if they were sentenced to serve the rest of their lives without the chance for further appeal, they would lose the chance to finish their dreams and do whatever they feel they could have accomplished. We will never have
Prisons are not traditional environments. They are ‘total institutions’ in the sense that they encompass inmates’ lives to an extent qualitatively greater than any other total institution. Prisons administer troubled human beings, who often bear long histories of violence as either offender or victim, into confined spaces against their wills and these individuals are brought into close contact with prison staff and other inmates, which often results in many forms of violence. This paper will examine the violence and victimization that occurs in prisons by focusing on inmate-on-inmate sexual violence, staff-on-inmate sexual violence, and physical violence and their prevalence in men’s and women’s prisons.
Secondly, another important thing that I learned about Corrections is what prison life is like inside prisons. In watching the videos in class, I learned that prison life is by no means easy, and that many people cripple under all the pressure from the prison staff and other prisoners. Prisoners lose many of the freedoms that they had in society, and they are in their cells for the majority of their time in prison to reflect on what they have done. The people in prison go from having virtually no rules on the streets, to having an abundance of rules as prisoners inside prisons. Prisoners are not allowed to have unlimited contact with other prisoners. Prisoners must wear the clothes required by the prison and nothing else. Prisoners are stripped of their personal belongings, and will face consequences if they are found with contraband. Lastly, prisoners must eat, shower, and sleep when they are told to do so. With
Some prisoners have a history of social isolation and marginalization, physical and psychological abuse, precarious employment or unemployment, or even a criminal lifestyle adopted at an early age. Others are affected by physical and / or mental disabilities and even health problems related to substance abuse and addiction. Still others have to deal
The living conditions for prisons around America are simply terrible for some prisoners. Some prisons don’t even meet basic standard for living making it unsafe to stay or live in. Inmates could be in prison for months, years, or sometimes life depending on the severity of the crime. Living behind bars is tough and can lead to mental illnesses. Some problems prisons face that make the living conditions unsafe for inmates are sexual harrassments, malnutrition, and
It is nothing new that relationships occur within the prisons. This includes male and females. However, the article we read stated that male and female relationships are quite different. For males, these relationships are geared with control and violence, as the females it’s quite the opposite.
The research contexts and settings: prison as a closed setting; controlled nature of prison; variety of prison types; separation of genders in prison; hierarchical nature of prison; permission to access.
Prisoners in portrayal of society are treated as outcast and are often forgotten- they need to be kept away from the society. It is vital to understand the purpose of prison and what they are trying to achieve and compare their actions to the re-offending rates as they are the perfect example to prove if the prison system works. However, studies about prisoners mainly focus on the effects prison has on them and how it affects society. There is luck of research actually looking at the prisoner experiences inside the prison and what issues they face. The Human Rights, including sexual abuse, are very common in US, and the number of victims inside the prison is dramatic. Moreover, by looking at the UK prison statistics and taking into