Prison Reform in the United States of America

In the essay "Prison "Reform" in America," Roger T. Pray points out the much attention that has been devoted to research to help prevent crimes. Showing criminals the errors of their ways not by brutal punishment, but by locking them up in the attempt to reform them. Robert Pray, who is a prison psychologist, is currently a researcher with the Utah Dept. of Corrections. He has seen what has become of our prison system and easily shows us that there is really no such thing as "Prison Reform"

More than two million people in the united states are in jail. (Does the U.S.) The united states holds about 25 percent of the worlds prisoners. That has caused overcrowding and money issues within the united states. From 1920 to 2012 the prison population increased from 170,000 to 1.5 million prisoners. That causes prisoner reform that supporters and critics are disagreeing about. (Tough on crime) The topic of prisoner reform has been debated for years now; there will always be supporters and critics who continues to debate this topic.

African Americans constitute 12% of the U.S. population, 13% of the drug using population and fully 74% of the people sent to prison for drug possession. Studies have shown that minorities are subject to disparate treatment at arrest, bail, charging, plea bargaining, trial, sentencing, and every other stage of the criminal process. These disparities accumulate so that African Americans are represented in prison at seven times their rate in the general population; rates of crime in African American communities is often high, but not high enough to justify the disparity. The resentment destabilizes communities and demeans the entire nation. (Justice, 2004)

When people think of reform movements, they often look for one key sign, and ask one key question of whether that the reform was a success. Did the reform create a lasting change in the way people view the institution that was reformed? All the great reformation movements, from Horace Mann and his education reforms, to Martin Luther, and the Protestant Reformation, to the civil rights movement, all created lasting change in the minds of the average person. One other reform, often overlooked historically is the Prison Reform movement. As the world shifted from 18th to 19th century ways of life, many key aspects of life underwent tremendous change. As the United States gained their independence from Britain and began to shape their own

For many decades the prison population in America has been increasing at an exponential rate. This has been attributed to several compiling factors. The majority of the consensus is that a combination of the war on drugs and the increased need for revenue to support the industrial prison complex/job/contracts has been to blame. Research tends to show that as more low level crimes have been assigned blanket sentencing, the disproportionate amount of non violent offenders have been imprisoned to a point where we jail more people per population than any other modern industrialized country on Earth.

It is without a doubt that the United States has the highest incarceration rate in the entire world, the United States Prison systems house around 1.6million prisoners to date and the numbers are continuing to rise (Tsai, Scommegna, 2016). The alarming statistics of the rising prisoner population for the United States is an epidemic and cause for concern because it is unsustainable both spatially and financially. Every year states are spending billions upon billions of dollars on our prison systems and we are putting hundreds of thousands of people behind bars every single year. This has led to an overcrowding of our prison systems which can lead to many other problems such as an increase in aggression, and an increase in risk to infections

In the course of the most recent 20 years, the U.S. correctional facility populace has qua-drupled, with someone.9 million people in the slammer in government and state penitentiaries, and local prisons by the year 2000. firms are looking for benefit making open doors from this prison populace. that corpora-tions are profiting by prison work: correctional facility privatization and prison exchange. we tend to in the blink of an eye survey key clarifications of detainment, re-port on this condition of prison privatization and correctional facility industrialization, look at the effect they require on sorted out work, and propose union routes in battling against the amplification of organization force inside the (D. E. (2002 inside the u. s., privatization should be comprehended as each a driving and main effect of financial procedure. The expanding dependence on advertised sorts of organization and organization self-direction in a portion of control by government is normally talked as "the new administration. " thirty The new administration is demonstrative of late changes inside the relationship between the business sector furthermore the state itself—changes that region unit resolute from world financial rivalry and option sorts of commonality amongst state and non-state on-screen characters, locally and transnational, as these have created in late decades (C. J. (2014).

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the percentage of people between the ages of 18 and 24 that have voted in presidential elections are steadily lower than any other age group (Johnston). What is it about the college age group that has lead to a decrease in their involvement of elections? For Orange is the New Black actress Natasha Lyonne, 37 years old, she is drawn to the polls because of the issue of prison reform (Johnston). This is only one of many examples of the older generation having a personal connection to an issue that drives them to research candidates, fill out the registration forms, and vote. It is because of the college students’ lack of a connection to the issues addressed in elections that has led to low voting rates. To resolve this predicament, a class should be institutionalized at all colleges. For example, there is a class called GOA currently at Xavier University and it is mandatory for all first-year students. It informs students about topics that are not taught in school.

The American Civil Liberties Union an organization for protection of liberties of the common American said “The United States incarcerates almost 25 percent of the prisoners in the entire world despite having only 5 percent of the world’s population. Hundreds of thousands of people are locked up not because of any dangerous behavior, but because they could not pay off a fine or were convicted of a nonviolent drug or property crime” (”Mass Incarceration”). This is unacceptable for a world power. America’s core values are centered around liberty and freedom and we have such a high incarceration rate. There are many different factors for the creation of mass incarceration. Thor Benson from Attn.com and writer of “The 4 Biggest Reasons So Many Americans are Behind Bars” stated that long sentences, excessive punishment of non-violent crime, and the war on drugs as being major contributors to mass incarceration. All of these help keep prisoners in the system instead of becoming healthy productive

Prison reform controversy in the United States began before the American Revolution. Different reform tactics wore modified since then; still the question is does the prison reform system in place work or, is it just a scam to splurge American taxpayer’s money at government’s will?

With consequential reprehensible policies, mass incarceration became a significant political issue prompting the need for federal prison reforms and solutions to an ongoing crisis. California voters initially passed the three-strike law in 1994, but the consequences of the massive increase in inmate population, degradation of state prisons, a federal order to reduce the prison population, and fiscal budget cuts to government programs led to the shift in the political consciousness of the public. Likewise, since 2009, thirteen civic engagement programs were initiated to represent and mobilize communities most impacted by implemented policies (Smith 2014). In 2012, voters approved Proposition 36 that aimed to modify some of the aspects of the

The evolution of prison reform is a reflection of society's changing attitudes toward crime and punishment. Prisons have progressed from simple places for incarceration where the primary purpose is to protect the public to instruments of punishment where the loss of freedom is penalty for breaking the law, to institutions for reform dedicated to mould the guilty to conform to society's norms. Prisons were among the first public buildings erected in the New World. The city of Boston felt the need of a "house of detention" when the town consisted of a mere forty homes. Early American prisons were not conceived as houses of punishment. In English and American law, political prisoners and high-ranking prisoners of war were occasionally incarcerated, but few common criminals could expect such treatment. Almost the only time commoners were locked away was while awaiting trial, once a verdict was delivered, they were punished on the spot or released (Lynch, 2011). The eighteenth century transformed not only the physical form of prisons but their function and their place in American consciousness.

The United States has reached a state of emergency in dealing with the opioid crisis. Change needs to occur by decriminalizing all drugs. Decriminalization would look like reducing prison time as well as expunging the criminal record of a minimal offender, the money that was previously used on jail would now be used on rehabilitation. This hopeful policy will be brought to the institutional level of the state, also known as the state legislature. The policy would be important to bring to this level because the state has the power to reduce jail time for drug crimes, as well as change drug felonies to misdemeanors*. A recent example of this state power has been seen in Oregon. Starting in July 2017 the state reduced jail

Main Points: The importance of this research study was to look at previous offender improvement programs to see if these studies yielded any significant data on offender improvement. Martinson concluded that most offender improvement programs had little positive results from treatment. The results relevant from this research were that offender improvement programs did not work or had an adverse effect on the offender.

However, there is a seemingly difference when it comes to people of color because it was found that 51% of African Americans were convicted, both for drug related convictions. This is where one can link and questions the relationship between race and sentencing and if one is sentenced long based on race. The answer as stated by Smith and Hattery, when sophisticated studies investigated links between race and sentencing, there was evidence that seemingly stated that there was direct discrimination towards minorities. This meant that African Americans received longer and harsher sentences then whites. In addition, “Scholars who study race and incarceration note that the Rockefeller Drug Laws as well as discrimination in sentencing have resulted in the racial transformation of prisons” (Smith and Hattery). This proves that discrimination towards minorities, whether it’s racial profiling or hash sentencing, was put in place with the purpose to mostly target them. However, the great demand of filling jail cells, have slowly aimed to not only target minorities but the working class as a