Overcrowded Jails and Prisons

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).

Research Question No. 1 - Did Three Strikes You're Out contribute to the problem of mass incarceration and overcrowded jails and prisons?

After exploring options of which states had the most overcrowding in prisons, the best option to go with was California because states like Alabama and Massachusetts did not have current statistics. If anything, their statistics were from 2016 or 2013, making data harder to collect. Therefore, according to the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation website, the most recent report they have of the total population is as of midnight February 8, 2017. The total population is 180,885, with four of them being civil addict. Total in-custody is of 129,284 inmates, parole is 44,721, non-CDC jurisdiction is 1,022 and lastly other population #6 inmates with 5,854 (“Weekly Report of Population”, 2017). Once again looking at a weekly

In the United States, the prison institutions, and county jail’s population numbers are growing rapidly. Offenders are receiving lesser sentencing and more federal funding disbursed to reentry and reintegration programs to reduce the cost of incarceration and to reduce recidivism. A recent Vera Institute of Justice (Vera) study of 40 states found that in 2011 the average annual total cost per inmate was $31,286, and the number of incarcerated people have quadrupled reaching 1.4 million in 2010 (Center on Sentencing and Corrections, Vera Institute of Justice, 2013, p.128). The criminal justice system has found alternative ways to deal with the overcrowding and cost of incarceration. I believe that community based programs benefit the government,

With this being an important year for the 2016 Presidential Candidate elections, positions on certain topics can be the deciding vote for many Americans. Hot topics such as gay rights, immigration reform, and free education are dominating the debates and conversations of these politicians. However, there is one societal issue that is not being addressed enough; the current overpopulation of U.S prisons. Although this may seem like a topic that does not impact the country at large, with prisons overcrowded by almost 40 percent (Hunt, 2011), sentencing reform makes fiscal and humanitarian sense.

Due to the “war on drugs”, prison overcrowding is becoming more and more of an issue, putting a strain on not just the law enforcement but our society as well. America has been implementing a “war on drugs” policy since the early nineteen – seventies. Since the creating of the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) in 1973 under Richard Nixon, then the Office of National Drug Control Policy under Ronald Reagan in 1988, the United States has found themselves in an endless war and in constant debt huge amounts of money.

Jails are facilities used to house inmates who have been arrested and being held pending a plea agreement, trail, or sentencing. Inmates who have been convicted of a misdemeanor criminal offense and are serving a sentence of 1 year or less are allowed to fulfill that sentence in a jail, oppose to those who have been convicted of a felony and were sentenced to 1 year or more for their conviction are housed in prisons. The Cook County Jail was established on January 15, 1831, by the Illinois state legislator. Furthermore, the courthouse and jail were not built until 1835.

While, building more prison facilities will increase the number of housing available for inmates, a more viable option would be to focus on rehabilitation programs as a method to reduce the number of inmates served in our prison system. One major problem is that the prison system fails to recognize the difference between punishment and restraint; people who are dangerous need to be restrained and should be incarcerated. (Prison Overcrowding is a growing concern in the U.S.).However, this incarceration should not be about punishment. Furthermore, research has shown that punishment only makes an individual more violent. In addition, it does not serve to change the behaviors that resulted in the original crime. However, punishing criminals only creates a vicious cycle of violence that does nothing to serve the good of mankind.

Overcrowding prisons are an issue that has been influencing the United States prison population for decades, however what is the true significance of overcrowding. As indicated by Jeff Bleich (1989) “the term overcrowding is repetitive, since crowding already refers to a higher level of social density than is desired”. An overcrowded prison is a shocking condition that causes outrage and dissatisfaction among detainees (Haney, 2014). This condition is so undesirable that one can consider it as unconstitutional. An overcrowded prison is commonly recognized as being the fundamental explanation behind appalling misconduct and the expansion of recidivism. According to Wagner and Sakala (2014), United States prison system “hold more than 2.4

Incarceration is not meant to be fun. Prison overcrowding is becoming major issue all over the United State. Our prison and jail inmates are growing dramatically. More and more people are committing more crime, which cause them sometimes locked up. Each state has a different way of sentence offenders. The dictionary define overcrowding as beyond what is usual or comfortable, simple means you cannot have more than the amount of inmate in a cell than the state allows you to. A jail cell design for four inmates can’t have six inmates in there. California is one of the state that has been infected by prison overcrowding and need to come to a conclusion on how to fix and prevents it from happening. The number of inmates are increasing based on their

Prisons are overloaded with inmates; there are alternative resources being used to reduce the number of inmates in prison/jail. The alternative resources are community corrections. Community corrections are often a privatized agency that is similar and different from private prisons. Privatized community corrections can give a positive outcome in the criminal justice system, but can also have a negative impact on clients. Why are clients required to pay fees instead of the courts, or taxpayers? There are laws written in the state of Colorado regarding Community Corrections. Overall, community corrections have advantages as well as disadvantages.

Treatment in prisons has increasingly become violent and unfair over the years. Additionally condition such as overcrowding , can cause a higher chance of inmates getting into fights, and health problems. These poor conditions has affected many inmates .The conditions shouldn’t be an additional punishment adding along with the bad treatment inmates receive. Additionally, guards consider harsh treatment as a way to deal with inmates and their behavior. Prison overcrowding is a factor to impoverished prison condition, and it can be life threatening to inmates and staff. It can lead to problems such as gang dispute, health issues, and it’s a violation of one’s privacy.It’s important to bring awareness to these problems. The first step is to spread

Primarily, Certain non-violent crimes should be punishable by fines rather than jail time because it will save tax payer's money. “In 2010, the mean annual state corrections expenditure per inmate was $28,323, although a quarter of states spent $40,175 or more” (Henrichson 72). That amounts to 80 billion dollars per year spent on incarcerating inmates, the majority of which are non-violent offenders. “For 80 billion dollars, [America] could finance new roads and new bridges and new airports, job training programs, research and development” (Obama 1). $29,000 is taken directly from tax payers to spend on federal prisons alone (Eisen 2). Rather than being used to pay for new roads, bridges, public schools, and to better the community, tax payers’

Overcrowding prisons is a pressing issue that our society is facing today. In this article I read titled “Community-Based Alternatives to Prison: How the Public and Court Personal View them” stated “while community corrections, including diversions treatment programs and intermediate punishment programs which are promoted in both professional and academic literature are relatively rare in actual practice.” (Benekos 1990) States with high crime rates also have high incarceration rates. Community alternatives were also less expensive and also were more likely to divert the offender from a criminal life style. The Omnibus Crime Control Act and the Safe Streets Act were projects funded by the law enforcement assistance admiration. After that community

Many people get away with breaking laws, especially the ones that are not as serious such as jaywalking, not paying for parking, or the most common, speeding. If people were caught doing all of this and had to spend one night in jail, there would be a major overcrowding issue. Even today, without being charged for the crimes listed above, we have a problem with overcrowding in our jails. If this were able to be a punishment to all criminal activity I think it would help lower the crime rate, but it is just not a possible solution. On the other hand, a possible solution would be to have special security cameras, that have facial recognition, pick up any crime activity and send a ticket to them with the price varying based on what the person