Prison Incarceration Paper

"Count!" The prison guard yelled on a brisk Saturday in Maidens, Virginia. I watched as the prisoners lined the walls of the James River Correctional Facility. While the majority of my friends spent their Saturdays enjoying pizza and ice cream with their family, my Saturdays consisted of being in a prison visitation room. My father was serving a thirty year sentence for distributing crack cocaine. As the years went on, I began to look forward to seeing the barbed wire and prison guards. I knew that in the midst of the penitentiary environment, I would at least be able to see a father figure for a few hours.

“Every year, 641,000 people walk out of prison gates, but people go to jail over 11 million times each year” (Rabuy). Within the United States, the incarceration rate is extremely high. For those who are incarcerated the percentage of people with a mental illness is remarkably prominent. For some offenders, there is another route out there such as diversionary programs which have a positive outcome. Diversionary programs such as The Choice is Yours is a beneficial route for first-time nonviolent felony drug offenders.

For over centuries, the only form of punishment and discouragement for humans is through the prison system. Because of this, these humans or inmates, are sentenced to spend a significant part of their life in a confined, small room. With that being said, the prison life can leave a remarkable toll on the inmates life in many different categories. The first and arguably most important comes in the form of mental health. Living in prison with have a great impact on the psychological part of your life. For example, The prison life is a very much different way of life than what us “normal” humans are accustomed to living in our society. Once that inmate takes their first step inside their new society, their whole mindset on how to live and communicate changes. The inmate’s psychological beliefs about what is right and wrong are in questioned as well as everything else they learned in the outside world. In a way, prison is a never ending mind game you are playing against yourself with no chance of wining. Other than the mental aspect of prison, family plays a very important role in an inmate’s sentence. Family can be the “make it or break it” deal for a lot of inmates. It is often said that “when a person gets sentenced to prison, the whole family serves the sentence.” Well, for many inmates that is the exact case. While that prisoner serves their time behind bars, their family is on the outside waiting in anticipation for their loved ones to be released. In a way, the families

MK Asante, in his book Buck: The Memoir, highlights the devastation of mass incarceration on the family structure and on individuals, particularly young individuals, who are incarcerated. Asante utilizes an informal tone and jargon the way in which the penal and justice systems dehumanizes those it is meant to reform. Asante’s informal approach and use of jargon turns the issue of mass incarceration into a conversation that engages readers. His feelings about the penal system and justice system are spelled out in the form of a narrative, thus making it easier for the reader to remain engaged. Brian Stevenson focuses on a variety of factors and their contribution to mass incarceration such as a lack of knowledge about mental health and the deterioration of one 's well being as a result of imprisonment. He utilizes anecdotes

The United States’ ever-expanding prison and jail population has brought about many questions regarding the side-effects of mass incarceration, namely involving the effects on the children and families from which those incarcerated are removed. Regardless of the perspectives on the appropriate position of incarceration in the criminal justice system, imprisonment disrupts many positive and nurturing relationships between parents and their children. In fact, more than 1.7 million children have a parent who is incarcerated in a state or federal prison as of 2007 (Glaze & Maruschak, 2008). These youths are at risk for developing behavior and school problems in addition to insecure attachment relationships. Parental incarceration, which may also be coupled with economic disadvantage and inconsistent living arrangements (Geller, Garfinkel, Cooper, & Mincy, 2009) can be an extremely difficult experience for children. It should come as no surprise that families with children suffer economic strain and instability when a parent is imprisoned, considering how each parent in today’s world typically needs to set aside time to earn an income to support their family, and most are unable to support their homes on one income. While it may be considered intrusive to some to intervene in the lives of children and families with incarcerated parents, research has suggested that there are positive societal benefits to intervening in the lives of incarcerated parents and their

Today prisons are overcrowded and over two million Americans, male, and female are sitting in jail or prison, and two thirds of those people incarcerated are parents (U.S. Department of Justice). Approximately two million of these children are separated from their mom or dad because of incarceration of which these are the custodial parent. These children suffer from poverty, inconsistency in caregivers, separation from siblings, reduced education, increased risk for substance abuse, alcoholism and incarceration themselves.

Over the last half-century, the United States has turned more and more frequently to the use of incarceration as a form of punishment. Sentencing policies and stricter laws requiring mandatory minimums for certain offenses, no matter the conditions of the offense, have boosted the incarceration rate in this country to staggering heights. The typical issues that affect America’s prison systems are reflected in Jennifer Gonnerman’s book, Life on the Outside: The Prison Odyssey of Elaine Bartlett. Elaine Bartlett’s life, along with the lives of surrounding family and friends, is forever changed by her 16 years of incarceration. Elaine Bartlett is only one of many Americans that have been wronged by the cruel and unusual punishments implemented by a society claiming to have a fair, balanced, and equal justice system. A fair and balanced justice system that convicts people who carries the right amount of drugs in weight to have a mandatory incarceration for a minimum of 15 years to life, yet those who commit murder or rape may receive a lesser sentence. There is also the issue of transitioning back into society after being incarcerated for so many years. Incarceration does not just punish the offender; the offender’s family and friends are also negatively affected by the conviction and imprisonment of a loved one. Children could be put in the system or need to be raised by other members in the family. This could lead the children to deviate down the same path as their parent who

As a criminologist advisor to a member of the state legislature. The legislature will soon vote on a bill that, if it passes, would double the maximum prison term for anyone convicted of armed robbery. My boss knows the bill is popular, but wonders if it will do much good. I will explain what recommendations I would make, the reasons for my recommendations, and is it a good bill or a bad bill to pass and how effective the bill will be.

Healthcare is a big topic no matter how you view it, but when looking at it from the point of a person who is in prison, it takes on a whole new view. Those who are in prison have federal and state laws that say that the prisons must provide them with medical facilities for their healthcare needs. This paper will identify a governmental agency that regulates the healthcare that is provided to prisoners in an institution within the United States, along with the foundation of such an agency and who regulates the licenses, accreditation, certifications, and authorization for employment for those who work within one of these

Assessing the consequences of our country’s soaring imprison rates has less to do with the question of guilt versus innocence than it does with the question of who among us truly deserves to go to prison and face the restrictive and sometimes brutally repressive conditions found there. We are adding more than one thousand prisoners to our prison and jail systems every single week. The number of women in prisons and jails has reached a sad new milestone. As women become entangled with the war on drugs, the number in prison has increased if not double the rate of incarceration for men. The impact of their incarceration devastates thousands of children, who lose their primary caregiver when Mom goes to prison.

The process of preparing an incarcerated individuals return to the family and the community may be the most important part of correctional case management. The importance of family involvement cannot be underestimated in addressing the needs of an incarcerated individual. Family involvement can assist in reducing the rate of recidivism. Research indicates that inmates who maintain contact with family and friends in the outside world are less likely to be convicted of further crimes and usually have an easier reintegration

One change in a family system experiencing incarceration that affects grandparents is the difficulty maintaining family ties with the incarcerated individual. Travis, McBride, and Solomon, (2005) state that factors such as the presence of security guards, the time it takes to visit inmates, difficulty of coordinating visits, and geographic location of the prison all hinder the ability for family members to maintain ties with the incarcerated family member (Travis, McBride, & Solomon, 2005). These particular challenges in visitation are difficult for family members, such as grandparents, to

Pretrial detention according to Black’s Law Dictionary is “the holding of a defendant before trial on criminal charges either because the established bail could not be posted or because release was denied.” (Garner, 2009, p.514) The year 2004 began with 83,361 pretrial cases. (Office of Justice Programs, 2006, p.1) From this amount of cases 33 percent of the defendants were released after the initial or detention hearing, 67 percent were detained and less than 1% were dismissed. (Id) Out of the 78,219 who completed pretrial services, 40 percent of them were release afore their criminal trial. (Id) Defendants charged with weapon, immigration and violent offenses were less probable to be released before trial than those charged with property

When the average person thinks of jails and prisons, they typically think of horrible criminals being locked up in order to protect the rest of society. They think justice has been served, and those who did the crime are now doing the time. But what goes on inside a prison, and inside the minds of the inmates? What about after those offenders have served their time, and are now being released back into the general public? People don’t really think about how prison affects a person’s mentality, or how incarceration impacts both relationships the inmate currently has, or ones that will develop in the future. Although it isn’t something most people think of first, incarceration is an experience that can have a negative psychological impact on a person for quite some time.

Someone once told me that, everyday is a new day and all your wounds and problems will heal with time, and your bonds made with love will grow stronger. However, I do not agree with this philosophy. You see once you have spent so much time in a cold, dark, unbearable place such as I have, you begin to wonder something. When will I see my next day. Will I ever see my next day. In this statement, a day represents a new set of issues, a new set of gifts. However, my life since I got to this facility. Has been two days. There was something clandestine about it. My first day seemed wonderful. It was magical, I saw my dreams coming true before my eyes, and yet. The second day never seems to end. Perhaps I shall see a third day, one day. I sincerely hope that no more people are forced to go through this intolerable, insufferable, unendurable experience.