Prison Incarceration Analysis

As understood by sociologists and scholars mass incarceration is a wide term that describes the increased rate of imprisonment in the prisons of United States for the past four decades. Accounting about 5% of the population of the world, United States recently have rapidly accommodated one-quarter of world prisoners. With the population statistics, the large numbers of prisoners leaves everyone with endless questions that need urgency in answering. Why the large number in the prisons? What are the causes of imprisonment? Are the constitutional laws in United States so harsh on minor faults that should have alternative ways of dealing with? Is justice really followed to the letter completely? And most importantly, who constitutes for these prisoners?

Many criminals are sent to jail on a day to day basis. Once they have completed their sentence they are faced with many problems once they are “free”. These problems can be but are not limited to housing, employment, and substance abuse. The prisoner, once they are released, has a tendency to go back to their old ways and to continue the life of crime they were a part of prior to prison. To avoid this, while a prisoner is in prison, the staff creates a reentry program for the prisoner. The reentry program takes affect once the prisoner leaves prison. These programs are created within the community to help the offender from committing new crimes and to integrate them back into society. These programs are also created to help with

The problem with prison reentry has been going on for many years in the United States, as I discussed in assignments one and two. Recidivism issues can often be linked with reentry issues because when offenders are returning to society, they need to be prepared, which is something that our current criminal justice system is not trying to achieve. In order to create some defensible solutions for prison reentry and the recidivism issues linked to prison reentry, the criminal justice system has to realize that there is no one overall solution because every offender have different offenses, different stories, different outcomes, and different prison sentences. Because of this, each offender's return to society will be different, and the reentry

One of the main barriers that inmates face when they are released from prison is limited cognitive skills, limited education and work experience, and substance abuse or other mental health problems. Substance abuse and other mental health problems limit employability because it limits the job readiness that is required for employment (Holzer, Raphael & Stoll, 2003). Another issue that is faced when inmates are released into society is that any skills that they did have prior to conviction has diminished greatly and they face lower pay due to their diminished or lack of skills, and the attitudes that have been developed during their time in prison deeply affects their attitude during their search for employment. Offenders also face another barrier when searching for employment. Many businesses can be held legally liable for any criminal action that their employees may cause (Holzer, Raphael & Stoll, 2003). These barriers that offenders face upon release is why solid solutions and planning must be implemented when considering the integration of ex-felons into society and preparation for reentry must begin well before the scheduled release date in order to successfully reintegrate an inmate into society and reduce the rate of recidivism.

Criminality in our country is often assigned to you at birth determined by trivial categories such as race, class, gender, immigration status, religion, and the list can continue forever. Life outcomes can be predetermined when taking all of these identities into account, making someone more susceptible to the reach of the mass incarceration system. However, I will be focusing on undocumented immigrants and how being seen as “illegal” is part of their daily lived experiences and how there are very strong parallels between the immigration detention centers and prisons in the United States. Undocumented people experience similar forms of social and political disenfranchisement that people affected by the criminal justice system also have to

In order to start and continue to accomplish the German and Norweigan approach to incarceration the U.S. must create new sentencing models in order to stop mass incarceration. The U.S. centers its system on incapacitation, removing the possibility for the individual to commit further crimes, and punitive sanctions to punish individuals. By 2012, the prison population grew by 705 percent, meaning just a little under 1.4 million inmates. This increase in inmates can be analyzed in the harsh sentences for nonviolent crimes, such as drug possession. Mandatory minimums are responsible for the increase, which is why in order for these methods to be effective, they must be gotten rid of and a new method for punishing certain crimes should be established.

Confinement has been the weapon of mass destruction in fighting crime in America. Since the early 1970s, prisons have paved the way to incarceration. The nation’s prison population increased by 705 percent, between 1973 and 2009, resulting in more than one in every 100 adults behind bars. This rapid growth came at a healthy cost that stripped the annual state and federal budget on corrections by 305 percent during the past two decades, to $52 billion. In the same period, corrections spending doubled as a share of state funding. In the United States, one in every fifty-two adults is on probation or parole. According to the National Bureau of Justice Statics, in the United States between the year of 2013 and 2014, an estimated 4.7 million adults were under

If the mental illness does not continue to be treated, this may threaten the likelihood of ex-inmate’s capacity to get a job, a residence or any other reentry necessity. These individuals besides having a mental health issue also have “high rates of substance dependence or abuse. Many former inmates also sought help for substance abuse problems but the inability to pay became a barrier. Therefore, unresolved mental health and unresolved substance abuse problems are a barrier for reentry. After the “war on drugs” epidemic a lot more people went into prison. Because of minimum penalty laws people who use drugs are in prison longer then people who have committed violent crimes. This has led for a shift in the system. We now have thirty-three percent of people on parole for drug crimes. We have twenty-nine percent of people on parole for violent crimes and four percent for weapon crimes. When the inmates get out, they are socially awkward and have many issues that can include family issues, and other social relationships. In conclusion, mandatory minimum sentences have placed a hardship on people with drug abuse problems who also happen to have mental health

More than 700,000 prisoners are discharged from Federal and state prison every year, while another nine million cycle through regional prisons. Surprisingly, more than two-thirds of these inmates are arrested again within three years of their discharge and many of them end up reincarcerated (White House, 2011). Such high rates of relapse and recidivism are adding a huge burden on the current criminal justice system, calling for the public support for improvements and promotion of effective offender reentry programs in local communities.

It would be our jail advantage to develop and address the re-entry program to help in the recidivism in the county jail. If these issues address it could help with the overcrowding of the jail population by implementing programs that will assist them in their criminal behavior. However, some state such as Nevada assist offender who is homeless by placing them in a reentry program to assist them with housing and another service that meets their criteria (Schmalleger, F. & Smykia, J., 2016). Therefore using these resource could possibly give this offender a sense security in a shelter environment and not on the street.

A paramount issue regarding prison populations in America, are the finances associated with running institutions of such magnitude. The cost of operations for any kind of incarceration facility is beyond exorbitant. The public overlooks the expenses of training employees, providing programs for inmates (vocational training, education, etc.), legal and medical assistance for inmates, maintenance and facility upgrades and etc. The funding for all this comes from tax payers at the local, state, and federal levels with assistance from federal programs and Congress. A better explanation is that local and state facilities are paid for by local and state taxes along with federal aid whenever it is attainable. Federal institutions are paid for through

Currently as a nation we use severity as our biggest form of deterrence; our threat of imprisonment has grown dramatically over time. In 1985 the average release time for a conviction of robbery was 32 months and in 2002 it jumped to a minimum of 53 months (Incarceration and Crime). We focus heavily on severity and longer incarceration rates; the idea is that a 10% increase in incarceration would lead to a 1.6%-5.5% decrease in crime (Lieka 2006) but this is not true. Prison rates have increased tenfold since 1970 and yet the crime rates have not dropped near those percents.The leading argument against increase in incarceration uses other states as examples of how ineffective it is; for example Florida heavily focuses on imprisonment to reduce crime with no effect (Incarceration and Crime). This idea would be great and a good mode of deterrence if those who go to prison actually learn their lessons and mend their future ways. Also if the unwanted effects of prison were at least tolerable this might deter crime but sadly even after experiment and evidence it is not a well functioning theory. The cost of funding our mass incarceration does balance out the decrease in overall crime. Besides when we have a nation who is majority hard on crimes compared to other crimes we end up severely punishing people who probably would respond better to rehabilitation than jail.

“Many experts believe that one cause of high recidivism rates is the poor labor market outcomes experience by former prisoners” (Valentine & Red Cross, 2015 P.1). This shows that employment is an essential key in helping prisoners make a successful transition back to the community/society without returning to crime. Due to the increasing number of prisoner reentry issues, many states have launched a multifaceted prisoner reentry initiative. In addition to experiencing the poor labor market outcomes, former prisoners recidivate at high rates. It has been showed that two-thirds of individuals released from prison are re-arrested within three years of release. Two experimental evaluations of transitional job programs were tested by the evaluation of the center for employment (CEO), which tested for the effects of transitional job reentry programs, while the second evaluation was the transitional job reentry demonstration (TJDR) which tested the effects of transitional job reentry programs in the Midwest. The analysis showed that the effects of the transitional job programs were similar for the two studies.

According to the graph the trend reflects that since the year 1880 the prison population has increased at a steady rate rarely decreasing over the years. The years where the prison population rarely decreased where the year of 2010-2012.As I looked at the bar graph the graph indicated that Texas has the seventh highest prison rate among all the states presented and if we were to look at the Us total state prison rate it indicated that the US as a whole has the twelfth highest state imprisonment rate among states which is shocking to be truthfully honest. Which makes me ponder on how do states such as Maine and Rhode Island, Minnesota, Massachusetts have lower imprisonment rate. What are they doing differently to decrease their imprisonment

(Wanger & Sakala, 2014) points out that rising crime rates, inadequate rooms in prison and frequent amendments of the law in terms of improvement of law enforcement and their tactics are some of the major causes of prison overcrowding. Research shows that harsh penalties for criminal activities and a rise in recidivism rates are also a cause. Overcrowding is a result of the criminal justice policy rather than escalating crime rates which emasculates the aptitude of prison systems to meet basic social necessities. It also compromises the delivery and efficiency of recuperation curricula, recreational activities, and education. Due to the lack of privacy in the cells caused by overcrowding, issues of mental health may lead to suicidal attempts