Nelson Mandela once said, “It is said that no one truly knows a nation until one has been inside its jails. A nation should not be judged by how it treats its highest citizens, but its lowest ones.” The prisons in the United States have been overcrowded for many years and require a change in order to fix this. Some of the main causes for prison overcrowding that will be covered in this paper are mass incarceration, long sentencing, recidivism, and prisoners of drug crimes. Overcrowding of prisons in the United States is a major issue that affects not only the prisoners themselves, but taxpayers and politicians. Although there are many different solutions to prison overcrowding such as building more prisons, alternative and shorter sentences, etc., the issue is still prevalent. Some feel the best way to deal with overcrowding is to build more prisons to accommodate the large influx of prisoners. Others feel the best mode of action to solve this problem is through shorter, and alternative sentencing, which frees up space for serious offenders of the law. This paper argues that shorter, and alternative prison sentences are the most effective way to reduce the prison population in the United States. Prisons and their overcrowding is a controversial topic not to be taken lightly. There are an incredible number of people in American prisons today. For example, according to Peter Katel, there are more people in prison right now in the United States than any other country. The
campaign donations is estimated to be at least $45 million over the last decade” (p. 2).
Prisons are safe guards for the public against those who wish to harm or disrupt the progression of everyday life. Locking up prisoners for violent crimes has been the way of solving most of society’s problems in the twenty-first century, but now the issue of prison overcrowding has taken a toll on the United States Prison System. The range of those being imprisoned varies vastly, from violent crimes, such as murder, to drug addicts and minor crimes, such as petty theft. Is the justice’s system pushing too far in punishing these minor crimes? What about those with drug problems? Could these minor wrongdoings be fixed without prison time? While prisoners need to be punished for their crimes, legislatures need to focus on
Think about spending years locked up behind bars, sitting in a cell with two or three other inmates which was intended for just one person because of a drug possession misdemeanor years earlier. Unfortunately overcrowding in prisons is happening too much around the United States, and many inmates are serving sevier time for nonviolent crimes. Prisons have shortages when it comes to enough room, proper health care, money, and resources to support all inmates. The Bureau of Prisons claimed that institutions nationwide were 39% overcrowded in 2012 and the number is only expected to rise to 45% by 2018. When overcrowding occurs within an institution, the psychological state of an inmate is at serious risk. Stressful situations can cause an increase of depression and anxiety which may not
Overcrowding within the criminal justice system has intrigued me to write about it because of personal family reasons. The problem of overcrowding has been a major problem within the criminal justice system for years. Overcrowding occurs due to harsher punishment for crimes (“Prison overcrowding is a growing concern in the U.S.,” n.d.). More laws are being created that makes certain activities illegal which places more criminals into jails (“Prison overcrowding is a growing concern in the U.S.,” n.d.). Criminals are also relapsing into criminal activity after leaving jail (“Prison overcrowding is a growing concern in the U.S.,” n.d.). Overcrowding in prisons has created extensive problems not only within the prisons but outside the prisons
This issue is not only a current issue, but a future issue as well if nothing is done to change it. “The American Criminal Justice System holds more than two point three million people in, one thousand seven hundred and nineteen State prisons, one hundred and two Federal Prisons, nine hundred and one Juvenile Correctional Facilities, three thousand one hundred and sixty-three local jails, and seventy-six Indian County Jails as well as in Military Prisons, Immigration detention facilities, Civil Commitment Centers, and Prisons in United States Territories.” The United States incarcerates more people than any other nation, and is account to twenty five percent of the total prison population in the world. So, why does our beloved nation whose motto is “the land of the free” have more people locked away than anywhere in the world? Unfortunately, there isn’t just one simple explanation to this. However, I have researched a few reasons why this could
Prisons are institution that are designed to handle people who have committed a conviction with different crimes. The people in these intuition are called inmates or prisoners due to crimes. The time that they have depends on the crime which can vary between two months or life in prison. Once in the prison, inmates undergo rehabilitation, incapacitation, retribution and deterrence which are meant due to the crime they have committed. The government is in charge of these facilities and manage to control the inmates. One ginormous problem is Prison Overcrowding that we have had since the beginning of federal prison. This is caused by having to many criminals in a penitentiary. Some of these criminals have not done a single violent thing in their life put have to do time due to the laws they have broken.
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
overcrowded prisons, as cells originally designed for one inmate now accommodate two or three prisoners each.8 Prison overcrowding has also resulted in a lack of privacy, deleterious physical conditions, inadequate sanitation, and decreased availability of basic necessities such as staff supervision and medical services. 9 Because of these declining conditions, inmates have increasingly brought suits against prisons, claiming that prison overcrowding violates the Eighth Amendment's prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment. 0
Eric Holder’s article describes how America has an unnecessarily large prison population. Eric Holder, Barack Obama’s attorney-general, argues that our nation’s prison system is “both ineffective and unsustainable”. Most of the nation’s prisons have reached capacity because “low-level, non-violent” drug suspects are being imprisoned. The author includes pictures to support his argument. This article will help me argue that refraining from imprisoning petty offenders can help solve the prison overcrowding issue in the United States.
Have you ever noticed the serious issue of prison overcrowding? Growth of prison inmates over the years. Since the late 1900 's the prisons have been filling rapidly and that has caused a huge problems in the 2000 's. Overcrowding is not as easy of a fix that everyone thinks it is there is way more to it and it is way more complex. There are many reason that the inmate population continues to grow. Throughout the years, there has been a huge debate on ways to lower crime rate so there won 't be as much people becoming inmates. Since the prohibition era, jails and prisons have took a huge jump in there population.There are many reason for these causes and very little is being done. Some of these causes are there are many repeat offenders
Prison Overcrowding is a topic that isn’t brought up much in the media. However, it’s one that should be addressed more than it is. Overcrowding puts Correctional Officer’s safety at risk as well as the safety of inmates. There must be a way to reduce the number of inmates or possibly build additional prisons. Prison overcrowding has many negative effects ranging from sickness, to even death.
Alarming issues that causes society to stir up continue to expand every day. Some of these issues include the educational system, healthcare laws, unemployment and economic situations, not to mention the ongoing water drought crisis…all of which are major dilemmas in California. One major dilemma, however, is often ignored. Over the past 30 odd years, California’s prison population has grown by 750 percent (“California’s Perpetuating Prison Crisis”). As this percentage perpetuates to make substantial gains, inmates are suffering in confinement cells, officials are negotiating over the issue, and the public is protesting to make their opinions count. The prison crisis has continued to grow over the years, causing a great uproar among all of California’s 32 state prisons.
In this article, the authors determine several short-term solutions to the major problem of prison overcrowding and argue that the problem of prison overcrowding would not be ending anytime soon, due to the inadequate attempts by state governments to deal with the inhumane living conditions in overcrowded prisons. This article relates to the topic because the authors analyze how the federal government and some individual states, such as California and Florida, respond to the constrained resources causing unsuitable conditions in overfilled prisons. This source illuminates the perpetuity of prison overcrowding, as most attempts made by state government have been focused on limiting the number of prisoners and not on living conditions. The
Prison overcrowding has always been a problem in California prisons. It has been growing over the year and has now lead the United States Supreme Court to take part in trying to find a solution to this problem. Because of this issue, Plata litigation came through and had a significant impact on the way we see community corrections. The ruling in the Plata litigation in turn lead to AB 109 or The Public Safety Realignment Act to be implemented as a solution to California’s growing problem of overcrowding. Researchers who conducted studies of this new act found many relevant things and gave many recommendations.
Prison overcrowding has been a serious issue since 1994 when the Federal Bureau of Prisons (FBP) found that the crime rates were increasing rapidly and overcrowding the prisons with innocent people and some people that stays in jail just for the free hostage and food.