Non-Criminal Justice System

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).

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 short the United States judicial system sends criminal offenders into the largest prison system in the world, where the increasing population forces overcrowding, widens the gap between state spending and revenue and fails to prevent recidivism; we must re-evaluate and reduce our current prison system in order to reduce state debt as well as provide inmates with livable conditions and keep them from returning to prison.

Throughout history into today, there have been many problems with our prison system. Prisons are overcrowded, underfunded, rape rates are off the charts, and we as Americans have no idea how to fix it. We need to have shorter sentences and try to rehabilitate prisoners back to where they can function in society. Many prisoners barely have a high school education and do not receive further education in jail. Guards need to pay more attention to the well being of the inmates and start to notice signs of abuse and address them. These are just a few of the many problems in our prison systems that need to be addressed.

America has a major problem with overcrowding in its prisons, and action needs to be taken. Since 1970, the inmate population in the United States has increased over 700%, far greater than the general population as a whole. This has led to declining quality of life within the prison system including 8th Amendment violations and it represents a needless drain on state finances. There is simply no value in keeping non-violent convicts in the prison system, sometimes for years. The costs are high, and there is very little benefit to America. The justice system needs to be overhauled to relieve the massive crowding in US prisons.

I personally do not think that any changes that have been made to reduce prison overcrowding are sufficient and more changes need to be made. First I would propose that the first step that is required in order to reduce the overcrowding of Americas prisons is to change the way the criminal justice system approaches the criminal offender. Instead of the focus being on retribution and making the criminal pay the focus needs to be on changing the perceptions, attitudes, and criminal behaviors through the offering of alternative sentencing practices and offering inmates comprehensive programs that will enable their successful reintegration into society. While victims need justice there also needs to be better response to criminal behavior other than the eye for an eye approach.

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

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.”

One problem that is faced in the corrections system today is overpopulation in the prisons. Prisons all over the United States are becoming overcrowded and that leads to many other problems such as

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

Mass incarceration is a problem around the world, but nowhere else is it more plague than the United States of America, which has one-fourth of its population locked up behind bars. The cause for this problem in the U.S. can be blamed on many things, the "war on drug", private prison facility, tough laws, and mandatory sentencing. However, there are programs that are in place to help reduce the number of individuals in prison, like the "Texas experiment (Justice reinvestment)", and other rehabilitation programs. But those efforts alone cant fix the problem. To decrease the mass incarceration in the U.S. a new approach must be taken, such as; eliminate prison time for low-level crimes, "the three-strike law”, expand parole and probation, and reform private prison.

Prison Overcrowding is one of America’s most critical issues in the Criminal Justice system. Just as the name states, the problem is insufficient jail space – for which the solution would be to build more facilities. What causes this problem? There are a lot of people in the world that believe putting all crime doers in jail is the best resolution. Let’s be honest here

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.

Due to budget crises in states across the United States of America, state governments must cut funding to their punishment facilities causing overcrowding in prisons to increase every day. Overcrowded prisons pose a potential breeding ground for crime as hundreds of inmates are squeezed into small accommodations. Thousands of low-level offenders receive jail sentences each day, these criminals make up about a third of the inmates in the United States. In the words of Republican Governor Mitch Daniels of India, in the conservative National Review magazine, “We are imprisoning, in our most expensive spaces, more people for relatively minor, nonviolent offenses, like low-level property and drug violations. Some of our guests are not with the state corrections system long enough for any rehabilitation, substance-abuse counseling or job training to take place” (Katel). Evidently attention and change to this neglected criminal punishment system need to be addressed. This issue remains a troubling problem in our country, state governments offer the best possible solutions to prison overcrowding such as directing local officials to perform and improve prison construction, rethinking criminal law and responding to budgetary concerns.

These measures were taken to ensure public safety but are now posing a problem for our correctional facilities. Overcrowding and budgets are among the problems brought about by these measures. Both the state and federal correctional population throughout the United States have steadily seen significant increases in their population, every year for the past decades. Based on the census found on the Bureau of Justice website, the data collected between June 30th 2000 to December 30th 2005 showed that prisoners held in custody between federal and state prisons increased by 10%. (“Bureau of Justice Statistics”, p.1 -2)