Overcrowding In 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).

While it is apparent why companies involved in the prison industry would support or even push for such a law, they are not the sole cause of the making of this law. There are three main groups outside the prison industry who, due to knowledgeable beneficiary intentions or misinformation, strengthen the strict law against crime and cause the overpopulation and long sentencing that in turn make the prison industry profitable. One of the ulterior motivated

The U.S. Supreme Court has acknowledged the growing distress, deeming California’s state prisons unconstitutionally crowded. In 2009, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled out that California’s 33 state prisons have become too overcrowded to the point where there are no sufficient medical and mental health care available (Realignment AB 109, 2013). The U.S. Supreme Court determined that the 33 state prisons are violating constitutional exclusions, under the Eighth Amendment, against unfamiliar punishment and brutality, says the American Legislative Exchange Council, an American organization producing model policies for state legislators (ALEC, 2010).

With Raise the Age being a controversial issue this year during the budget, bill A.3080 has a higher chance of going to the Assembly floor. This bill will limit the length of time prisoners are placed in solitary confinement, restrict prisoners from the special population from being placed in solitary confinement, develop rehabilitation units to help prisoners placed in confinement, and make facilities require training for their staff and report their solitary confinement numbers. It will lead to a reduction in costs for prisons because there will be fewer prisoners placed in solitary confinement with the restrictions. Overall, the whole state will be affected by bill A.3080 because there are prisons located throughout the state and the prisoners come from different parts of the

Overcrowding in prisons is causing prisons to shorten inmates recreation and personal time which ultimately results in more violence. Along with overcrowding comes the issue of more taxpayer money being spent on prison guards compensation. Lastly, one of the worst things that happens from prison overcrowding is that the availability to education programs is reduced as their primary focus is dealing with the amount of inmates not their education.

Prison overcrowding has been seen as a small issue in the eyes of big news organization however the problem may be breaking through your door soon enough. Many citizens have pushed several proposals on how to solve this problem but the state and federal government have denied all of these responses and have instead either freed criminals or have kept them as they were. Those who try and tackle problems like these often give up due to the fact that even more time and money may be needed to solve their wasteful solutions. Incentive programs such as work release and community service have only blinded law abiding citizens from the truth, that the government will not due what is necessary to de-escalate overcrowding in prisons.

Prison overcrowding is a major problem in our criminal justice system and it continues to be a hotly debated topic as to how we should address the problem. One of the main reasons our prison systems have a problem with overcrowding is drugs. More specifically, the "war on drugs" started by President Reagan in 1982 brought a dramatic increase to the number of people put behind bars for drug offences. Mandatory minimum sentencing and truth in sentencing are two policies which have sent drug offenders to prison and kept them there for longer periods of time. The continuing crusade against drugs has apprehended hundreds of thousands of suspects who spend millions on drugs but the cost to incarcerate these non-violent offenders exceeds billions of dollars and much of that money is coming from the taxpayers ' pockets. One way to address this problem is to reverse the current trend of putting first time, non-violent drug offenders in prison and instead sentence these offenders to boot camp and counselling combined with family support.

America holds 16.3 trillion dollars in debt and the debt will continue to increase for the next twenty years. Arizona is not far behind with the accumulating debt of 42.7 billion dollars. Arizona crimes rates has increased in the last decade and the state now has over 42,000 inmates being provided food and cells at the taxpayers’ expense. To accommodate the increase of prisoners, Arizona has the increase the spending on the prison system will ignoring methods that will cut state’s expense and the increasing crime rate. In order to ensure public safety and to replenish exhausted expanses, Arizona Legislatures should adopt a new sentencing reform that limits the cost of prisons while protecting the general

California has one of the most dysfunctional and problematic prison system in US. Over the last 30 years, California prison increased eightfolds (201). California Department of Correctional and Rehabilitation (CDCR) does little to reform prisoners and serve as human warehouse rather than a correction institution. California's prison system fails the people it imprisons and society it tries to protect. In many cases, California's prison system exacerbates the pre-existing problems and aids in the formation of new problems for prisoners. This paper discuses the criminogenic effects of overcrowding, and reduction/elimination of programs and how it negatively affects California and the ballooning prison population and possible remedies.

The sharp rise in The United States prison population led to a decline of conditions for inmates and lead to the rise of Supermax prisons. Figure one in journal The Past and Future of U.S. Prison Policy on page 713 by Craig Haney and Philip Zimbardo shows the dramatic increase in the inmate population after 1980 to 1995. In 2014 it was recorded that “There are approximately 2 million inmates in state, federal and private prisons throughout the country” (Pelaez 1). America leads the world in inmate population holding 25% of the world's

In addition to discrimination, the author also adds that the bill costs a lot of money to have people in prison. In the same article by (Yassky) "The second cost is that an unacceptable number of Americans are in prison". The cost of incarcerating people would rise and so would a lot of problem within the prison as well. The cost to have many people incarcerated would come at cost taxpayer a lot of money. Also, the cost to have to hire more officers when there not all of the inmate was a problem. In addition to already had some law that plays a part in this area. I do agree with the author in this part of argument because he states that cost to have many people incarcerated is too much some can be admitted for a simple thing such theft.

Decades later a closely divided Supreme Court cited "serious constitutional violations" in California's overcrowded prisons and ordered the state to abide by aggressive plans to fix the problem (Doyle, 2011).

Another interviewee that also agreed with the bill said that the prison population in the United States is assumed the highest compared to other countries. Part of that is because of to the sentencing that are harsher for crimes considered small in other parts of the world. The passage of this bill will give law makers and parties involved in the justice system a chance to review and evaluate laws and sentencing for reasonability. Secondly, the law will influence that attitude of judges, prosecutors toward minorities. This is true because are often the victims of harsher sentences for similar crimes committed by Caucasian. As a result, minorities make up the majority of the prison population. Thirdly, prison has proven to be a failures. It

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.

The USA has, currently, over 2.3 million people incarcerated in various kinds of prisons. We have the highest imprisonment population ratio in the world with 716 of 100,000 people in prison. This is hugely expensive too, considering just a level two prisoner costs an average $52.98. Prison overcrowding is growing at an alarming rate as well: it has become five times as large as it was 40 years ago. This issue is only going to get worse with time. A survey of 34 states reported an overall growth of 3%. While that may not seem like a lot, consider that the growth was concentrated in only a few of those surveyed. While some states may not feel the effects yet, it is only a matter of