Prison Failures

Many people believe that the prison system works, but does it really? Many studies and research has been made in order to show that the prison system is failing. Citizens of the United States of America are forced to pay for a system in order to make our country “safe”, however no one seems to inform themselves with the facts. Imprisoning people who break the law does not make them change into a better person, and the cost for having someone locked up is costly. It is evident that our prison system have failed. “47% of offenders leaving prison reoffend will within one year” (Leach). So, why do we keep on sending people to prison?

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.)

Whenever you imagine prison, you think up ideas and violent images that you have seen in the movies or on TV.   Outdated clichés consisting of men eating stale bread and drinking dirty water are only a small fraction of the number of horrible, yet “just” occurrences which are stereotypical of everyday life in prison.   Perhaps it could be a combination of your upbringing, horrific ideas about the punishment which our nation inflicts on those who violate its’ more serious laws that keeps people frightened just enough to lead a law-abiding life. Despite it’s success in keeping dangerous offenders off the streets, the American prison system fails in fulfilling its original design of restoring criminals to being productive members of society, it is also extremely expensive and wastes our precious tax dollars.

Yolanda Valentin a 21-year-old prisoner, born as Daniel Valentine, looks and sounds much like a woman if it wasn’t for her sex assignment. After being placed in a cell with two male inmates, Valentin was repeatedly abused. She informed correctional officers of the continued, brutal sexual violence her cellmate was putting her through. The prison system did not respond to her. After all, from their point of view Valentin should have opted for solitary confinement to protect herself from the general population of male inmates. In solitary she would have sat quietly, by herself, for 24 hours in a cell made explicitly for violent prisoners. Valentin, a transsexual inmate in transition, asks herself constantly: “A lot of times I wake up, and I look around at my surroundings, and I see all these men. I think, ‘What am I doing here?’”(Baus).

The subject of prison evokes fearful and violent images seen in movies or on television; outdated clichés consisting of men eating stale bread and drinking dirty water that are intended to repulse people and deter them from committing crimes and ending up in such a position. Unfortunately, the reality of the American prison system is just as troubling as the dated stereotypes surrounding it. Despite its success in keeping dangerous offenders off the streets, the modern prison system fails in fulfilling its original design of restoring criminals to being productive members of society. It has proven to be an inefficient and ineffective system by focusing on punishment over rehabilitation, leading to issues such as overcrowding, wasting taxpayers’ money and a high recidivism rate.

    African Americans make up almost 15% of the population in the United States, yet they make up 40% of the population of incarcerated individuals. This is only one of several features that produces the corruption and failure of our system of punishment. According to a survey conducted in Grand Rapids, out of 25 people surveyed 20 of them knew someone who had been incarcerated (Poeder). One of the people surveyed that also was incarcerated themselves, replied that the system was “setup to fail” (Poeder). The United States has only about 5% of the population of the world yet we have a quarter of the world's ratio of people in cages. During this essay I will prove that our system of imprisonment is a disturbing, silent

In 2011, I spent time serving in prisons with a church organization who’s goal was to change the systemic problems within the prison system. This caused me to examine all aspects of inequality and oppression that disproportionately affects people of color.

Question: Discuss the history of the prison system in the United States. Be sure to identify the various stages that the American prison system has gone through. Also identify what problems were present with each stage as you see them.

The prisons in America seem to cause more problems than assistance in today's society. The country's penal system is overcrowded, expensive, and some argue that is ineffective as well as inefficient. The costs to staff and support these facilities increase dramatically every year. Prisons, which are supposed to be correctional facilities, are currently filled with violence and hostility. These institutions are created to control crime by deterrence, incapacitating criminals, which protects society from potentially dangerous criminals, but it is hard to tell if this is being accomplished.

The American Prison framework is coming up short us as a country. As exhibited by Brain Kincade the American restorative facilites framework is monstrous. The American Prison is enormous to the point that it's reviewed turnover of $74 million obscurations the GDP of 133 countries. The greater part of it needs to do with the way the American true blue structure works and how it has changed over the traverse of the most recent 40 years. The country detain masses has quadrupled to 2.2 million in which it has amplified all through the last a30 years. The American Prison is higher for blacks and Latinos more than whites. The miserable part is that numerous people in these therapeutic workplaces are moms, fathers, sisters, kinfolk, young women and

The United States currently over-incarcerates its citizens, and it is not morally justified because it is unsustainable, inhumane, and the product of unethical policies. Approximately 2.3 million people are currently incarcerated in state and federal prisons, juvenile correctional facilities, and jails (Wagner & Rabuy, 2015). Before continuing a practice that affects such a large number of our citizens (not just those in prison, but their families and communities as well), we need to ask the question: Is this working? Is it ethical to continue a practice that may be doing more harm than good?

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.

The Unites States of America’s prison system is a flawed mess. To open the eyes of our government we must first take a stand against unlawful government decisions, and show support for the greater good of society. What are our own tax-dollars paying for, what are the flaws in the justice/prison system, why is overcrowding in prisons causing tension, and what are ways our society and government can rebuild the system that has been destroyed over the years? Most criminals in prisons are not a danger to our society because they commit crimes just to use jail as a shelter, causing the overcrowding of prisons and wasting away of what we really should be paying for.

America; the land of the free and the home of the brave. Free, that is, until you break one of America’s many laws and are convicted and sentenced to incarceration in the prison system. Depending on the severity of the crime, one might be sentenced to either a minimum, medium, or maximum security prison.

By 2014, these two private prison companies accounted for approximately 75% of the $7.4 billion private prison market. Both CCA and GEO reported margins higher than that reported by Apple in 2014. They reported operating margins north of 30% of the facilities they owned and managed (Tylek). There are other smaller companies across the country, which are often undercapitalized, inexperienced, understaffed and are more likely to fail eventually (Smith). Other private prison companies include Management & Training Corporation, LaSalle Southwest Corrections, Community Education Centers, and Emerald Companies (Tylek). However, largest companies such as CCA and GEO increase their share of the existing private prison market by acquiring existing smaller