Increased Population of Prisons Essay

As a country, we should care about all of our citizens and work toward bettering them, because we are only as strong as our weakest link. When it concerns the issue of corrections it should not be a discussion of punishment or rehabilitation. Instead, it should be a balance of both that puts the spotlight on rehabilitating offenders that are capable and willing to change their lives for the better. Through rehabilitation a number of issues in the corrections field can be solved from mental health to overcrowding. More importantly, it allows offenders the chance to do and be better once released from prison. This paper analyzes what both rehabilitation and punishment are as well as how they play a part in corrections. It also discusses the current reasons that punishment as the dominant model of corrections is not as effective as rehabilitation. After explaining rehabilitation and punishment, then breaking down the issues with punishment, I will recommend a plan for balance. A plan that will lower incarceration rates and give offenders a second chance.

Every civilization in history has had rules, and citizens who break them. To this day governments struggle to figure out the best way to deal with their criminals in ways that help both society and those that commit the crimes. Imprisonment has historically been the popular solution. However, there are many instances in which people are sent to prison that would be better served for community service, rehab, or some other form of punishment. Prison affects more than just the prisoner; the families, friends, employers, and communities of the incarcerated also pay a price. Prison as a punishment has its pros and cons; although it may be necessary for some, it can be harmful for those who would be better suited for alternative means

Over the past few decades, the United States has witnessed a huge surge in the number of individuals in jail and in prison. Evidence suggests the mass imprisonment policy from the last 40 years was a horrible catastrophe. Putting more people in prison not only ruined lives, it disrupted families, prevented ex-prisoners to find housing, to get an education, or even a good job. Regrettably, the United States has a higher percent of its population incarcerated than any other country. America is responsible for a quarter of the world’s inmates, and its incarceration rate is increasing exponentially. The expense produced by these overcrowded prisons cost the country a substantial amount of money every year. Although people are incarcerated for a number of reasons, the country’s prisons are focused on punishment rather than reform, and the result is a misguided system that fails to rehabilitate criminals or discourage crime. By researching mass incarceration, I hope to get society to understand that incarcerating an individual not only effects the family, but we will look at the long term consequences on society and how the United States can remain safe and, at the same time, undo much of the damage that results from large-scale imprisonment.

The proliferation of prison overcrowding has been a rising concern for the U.S. The growing prison population poses considerable health and safety risks to prison staffs and employees, as well as to inmates themselves. The risks will continue to increase if no immediate actions are taken. Whereas fighting proliferation is fundamentally the duty of the U.S. government, prison overcrowding has exposed that the U.S. government will need to take measures to combat the flaws in the prison and criminal justice system. Restructuring the government to combat the danger of prison overcrowding, specifically in California, thus requires reforms that reestablishes the penal codes, increases the state’s budget, and develops

Prison Overcrowding: Prisons have become warehouses of human beings as opposed to institutions meant to provide a means to engage in restitution by delinquent individuals in society. “One necessary condition for rising incarceration rates has been the massive expansion in prison construction and capacity, without which prison populations could not have grown so dramatically” (Guetzkow & Schoon, 2015). As more prisons are being built, more delinquents are being incarcerated in order to fill them. “Prison facilities are filled 38 percent beyond rated capacity, with overcrowding being particularly acute in higher-security institutions” (Rowland, 2013).

No matter how you look at it, the prison system within the US holds too many people without valid reason. The last decade has seen a lot of states cut down on crime while also cutting down on their prison populations. In the years between 1999 and 2012, for example, both New York and New Jersey cut their prison populations by 30%, and crime rates fell “faster than they did nationally.”

In the past four decades, there has been a staggering increase in the United States prison population at the local and state level. Currently there are 2.2 million people in the nation’s prisons and jails that has added up to a 500% increase over 40 years (The sentencing project). The cause of this prison growth is a variety of laws and punitive sentencing policies that were initiated starting in the early 1970’s. Policies such as harsh drug penalties for non-violent crimes, Mandatory Minimum Maximum sentences and the Three Strikes law have all contributed to America’s current problem of mass incarceration.

In our world, nobody is perfect. Some people have disorders; some people are not raised correctly; some people are in need of essentials. These conditions are usually the main causes of a crime. On the other hand, the good news is that most people can be rehabilitated. The only people who might not be able to be rehabilitated are people with major disorders. Even though some people can’t be rehabilitated, we still need to make a safe community, so we need to rehabilitate the people that can be rehabilitated. In order to do that “[w]e need to create prison conditions, both physical and psychological, that encourage cooperation on all sides and that support change as opposed to conflict and calcification of negative behavior” (Chura). The people that made mistakes that got them in prison need to know that what they did was wrong, and how to fix it. They also need to know to never do it again, and be aware of the differences between right and wrong. The people that can be identified as good candidates for rehabilitation need to go through reform programs in prison and learn how

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

Prison’s were established a long time ago to try to put an end to the rapidly increasing crime rate, however over time we are seeing the effectiveness of the most prisons decreasing. As a result of this epidemic, prisons have a higher recidivism rate and over 40 percents are currently operating over maximum capacity (Holder.) Through different types of research, we are finding out that our prison systems are no longer effective and there is a serious need for improvement. The United States has only 5 percent of the world’s population, yet we incarcerate almost ¼ of the worlds prisoners (Holder.)

The United States is the world’s leader in incarceration. It spends more resources on its prison system than any other nation and has the largest prison population in the world. Between 1980 and 2016, the number of inmates in U.S. state and federal prisons increased from 320,000 to more than 1.5 million. This corresponds to a change in the incarceration rate from 139 to 450 prisoners per 100,000 residents. Most lawmakers tend to believe that incarceration is a necessary construct needed to reform criminals to properly incorporate them into society. They insist imprisonment reduces crime rates through incapacitation and deterrence. Thus, it is not surprising that expenditures on corrections increased as states built new prisons,

The United States prison population has expanded at an increasingly rapid rate over that past several decades. Each day, more and more criminal offenders are sent to prisons; most of which were designed to house fewer inmates but are now packed to their limits. This “mass- incarceration era” as many scholars and commentators of the Criminal Justice System call it, is a result of several key issues that have created an environment within the correctional system that forces many inmates to serve longer prison sentences while increasing recidivism rates. Current federal and state sentencing policies have resulted in historically high rates of offender recidivism and the highest incarceration rates in the world (Warren, 2007). As a result, prison population and overcrowding has rapidly increased and has become a serious issue across the country however, a reform in sentencing policies, more early-release incentives, and reintegration back into society through rehabilitation will help reduce recidivism and prevent the continuing rise of prison populations. (change once paper is complete)

With the belief that the former policy of rehabilitation no longer sufficed to meet the needs of the countries growing criminal population, new policies enforced harsher punishments, longer sentencing ranges with the removal of early release privileges, and reinstated the practice of capital punishment (Miethe & Lu, 2005). For professionals in the field, who intend to make strides, which have a positive impact on the future of crime, it is critical for them to understand this history. It is simply not enough to know it. Within the patterns, there is a message and an answer of how to effectively deal with the crisis faced today as a result of the policy changes. The crisis of not only how to handle offenders, but how to appropriately deter

Over the last decade the prison population in the United States has increased but the total admissions has decreased. In 2004, the national statistics for the prison population showed 1,497,100 persons to be incarcerated from Federal Institutions to State Institutions. Ten years later in 2014, the prison population increased to 1,562,525. This increase in population is not as dramatic when it comes to comparing 2004 and 2014. However, comparing 2014 to 1978 there is a tremendous increase in population, the total population in 1978 was 307, 276. From the war on drugs to the increase numbers of homicides, in 36 years we have incarcerated over one million additional people. In one year, the justice system admitted 631,

The United States of America has the highest prison population in the world. Despite the fact that the United States holds only 5% of the world’s population, it accounts for about 25% of the world’s prison population (Deady, 2014, p. 1). Statistics also show that the United States has a recidivism rate of over 75% (Cooper, Durose, & Snyder, 2014, p. 1). Because of this, billions of tax dollar are spent on state and federal prison incarceration every