Prison Overcrowding Is A Serious Problem

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).

The overcrowding prison reflects that the inmate population has grown much faster than the funding for prisons, which is controlled at the state level. In most cases, state funding has not come close to keeping up with the rise in the prison population, leading to decrepit prison infrastructure that is wholly inadequate for housing such large numbers of inmates. Without capacity to house inmates properly, some prisons have resorted to having prisoners sleep in gymnasiums, and many have overcrowded cells to accommodate the extra bodies. This overcrowding has led to deteriorating cleanliness of prisons and declining safety. Today, non-violent prisoners are forced to live in close quarters with violent ones, and the results are predictable.

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.

There are currently over two million people in our nation 's state and federal prisons and jails. Nearly one and a half million of these offenders occupy state and federal prisons, serving over a year in detention for felonies.(1) The most alarming statistic is the fact that the United States houses twenty five percent of the world 's inmates. A good percentage of these convicts are serving time for drug crimes, most of which are first time,

The United States is desperately in need of prison and criminal justice reform. The current system miserably fails at lowering recidivism rates, limiting prison populations and rehabilitating drug and alcohol addicts. This is because very few prisoners receive drug treatment in prison, and those who do receive inadequate treatment. Fortunately, there are a multitude of upcoming drug treatment techniques that have proven effective in treating addiction. As a result of refining drug treatment in American prisons, not only will more drug addicts overcome their addiction, but the prison population will be reduced and the United States improve financially.

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Punishment is not the only way that we currently deal with criminals. Rehabilitation is another form of justice used , although it is not used as much as it should be. It seems like most people believe incarceration is a form of rehabilitation, when in-fact it isn’t and more and more criminals are no longer scared of prison. There are many forms of rehabilitation such as drug treatment, community service and mental institutions. The most common of these rehabilitation’s is Drug Treatment. In 2013 there were 210,200 inmates serving on drug related crimes (BJS, 2014, p.16) By helping these offenders to quit doing drugs, we can reduce the number of drug related crimes in the future.

Nonviolent drug abusers have no significantly beneficial rehabilitation programs to fix their addiction and must be placed or forced into programs that are created to repair the broken lives. Simply incarcerating drug abusers does not fix their problems. In most cases it makes their addiction worse. Prisons need to develop better and more extensive rehab programs and although rehab programs are beneficial “Some inmates will refuse to comply with rehab program. Along with not complying they are just

Jails are facilities used to house inmates who have been arrested and being held pending a plea agreement, trail, or sentencing. Inmates who have been convicted of a misdemeanor criminal offense and are serving a sentence of 1 year or less are allowed to fulfill that sentence in a jail, oppose to those who have been convicted of a felony and were sentenced to 1 year or more for their conviction are housed in prisons. The Cook County Jail was established on January 15, 1831, by the Illinois state legislator. Furthermore, the courthouse and jail were not built until 1835.

Incarceration is not meant to be fun. Prison overcrowding is becoming major issue all over the United State. Our prison and jail inmates are growing dramatically. More and more people are committing more crime, which cause them sometimes locked up. Each state has a different way of sentence offenders. The dictionary define overcrowding as beyond what is usual or comfortable, simple means you cannot have more than the amount of inmate in a cell than the state allows you to. A jail cell design for four inmates can’t have six inmates in there. California is one of the state that has been infected by prison overcrowding and need to come to a conclusion on how to fix and prevents it from happening. The number of inmates are increasing based on their

Presently, correctional facilities are still being overused. As mentioned previously, history has shown that this has always been a concern due to the increase in American population and the inexperience of knowing what to do with the criminals. Currently, our nation’s incarceration rate began to intensify during the 1980’s and the 1990’s when our nation was experiencing an escalation in crime occurrences. These crime occurrences included a growth in drug abuse, burglary, thefts and other crimes to name a few. This

Prisons today are for individuals who break the law, are found guilty by the judicial system and taken out of society to ensure safety for all citizens. The severity of the sentences they receive are not just to punish them but for society to see that the judicial system works and is fair. These criminals are sent to prison to pay for their crimes, to protect society, deter them from committing more crimes, and to eventually rehabilitate them. Society is faced with crime daily and if you break the law, you go to prison/jail. With crime rates rising in certain areas, so do the prison populations and that can also cause overcrowding in prisons. When prisons become overcrowded, it can have negative effects on prisoners, staff, and the organization itself. When a criminal is caught, found guilty and convicted both the prison system and inmates goal is to complete their sentence. Then they can return to society as a productive, normal citizen who has paid their dues.

Prison Overcrowding has become a major issue in the United States. Many laws such as the three strikes law and also mandatory minimums have played a major part in prison overcrowding in the United States. The violence that is caused by prison

This article discusses overcrowding in the United States prison system, due in part to mandatory prison sentences. Additionally, this article also discusses the challenges in managing the overpopulation of prisons and gives an objective look at solutions, to include building more prisons, to combat overcrowding. While the author does not include information about himself and his qualifications, his material is neutral in nature and does not appear to attempt to persuade or sway readers a particular way. This article appears to be written for anyone that has interest in a comprehensive look at prison overcrowding. I believe this to be an extremely extensive overview of overcrowding in our prison system. I found that this reading is not for those looking for a quick synopsis of issues, this is a very long and extensive analysis designed to give an objective view of overcrowding in the prison system. I found this article while searching CQ Researcher for prison overcrowding.

Solving the problem of overcrowding in prisons could be easily solved with capital punishment. According to the author of “The Death Penalty,” Bri Buch, “Without executing prisoners and putting them on death row, I can see every prison getting overcrowded and out of hand.” In other words, there isn’t something done about overcrowding in prisons then prisons can become even more dangerous. In the article, ”Overcrowding,” It is stated, “Overcrowding, as well as related problems such as lack of privacy, can also cause or exacerbate mental health problems, and increase rates of violence, self harm, and suicide.” Overcrowding in prisons has become a big problem. If this problem isn’t resolved then it could increase more violence and even death rates