Prison Reform is Necessary: Must Focus on Respect for Human Life

According to statistical data found in the Bureau for Justice Records, there are a number of problems that most prisons in the country face. The records indicate that the number of adult federal and state inmates increased from `139% in `1980 to 260% (Walker, 1999). As a natural default, the United States of America has the highest incarceration rate in the world. This in itself brings about one of the major problems that are faced in modern incarceration which is overcrowding in most prison facilities. The number of offenders in the country has increased rapidly over time while the country prison system has not really been able to cope with this rapid increase. Prisons intended for one or two inmates are now crowded with more than fifty individuals. Because of this most prisons are overcrowded and most of the facilities available are unable to cater for the needs of all the prisoners (Siegel, 2009).

Prison reform is an issue that has been a concern for a long period of time. The problems that Angela Davis brings up throughout her book are only some of the problems with the prison system. Whether it be the influence of corporations on prisons and legislators, the role that racism plays, or the safety of the prisoners. Her solution to these problems is the abolition of jails and prisons by creating policies that will reduce the number of people sent to prison. This would destroy the prison system as the main concept of punishment. The ways that she aims to do this is by providing physical and mental care to everybody, demilitarize schools, and change the justice system to one based around reconciliation rather than retribution. I find myself to agree with many of the concerns that she lists and believe her argument to be somewhat convincing. However, I do not believe that a complete abolition of prisons is what is necessary to fix the prison system. This paper will explore the concerns that she voices in her argument, how convincing I find them, and what I believe to be the flaws in her conclusion.

Reform movements generally sought to improve American society and reformers wanted to repair the social and political climate of the current day. The statement “Reform Movements in the United States sought to expand democratic ideals”, is valid in that movements like women’s rights, public school, abolitionism and prison reform sought to improve the tight wounds of society and expand the democratic nature of society to even more people. Inspired by the Second Great Awakening and the recent Transcendentalist movement, these reforms were key in expanding the social, cultural and political world between the years of 1825 and 1850.

The current policies focus at the consistent social change since the traditional punitive orientation of the criminal justice system turns out to be ineffective. As the crime rates keep growing, the public demands the introduction of more severe punishment for offenders, while prisons are overcrowded. Moreover, the growing crime rates among juveniles increase the public pressure on the criminal justice system as the public demands the introduction of severe punishment and imprisonment of juvenile offenders. However, the penitentiary system cannot imprison as much population as the public demands at the moment, while the imprisonment turns out to be ineffective in terms of the prevention of crimes and recidivism. In such a situation, the public is unprepared to the essential social change, when the imprisonment should be replaced by other, less strict and repressive forms of punishment. Policy makers should have

In America, crime rates are going up and prisoners are being released from prison with a wrong sense of direction resulting in their finding themselves back behind bars within a short period of time after being released for an action that could have been prevented if the proper precautions had been taken. Prisons need to put forth the effort to resolve these issues and make America’s streets secure again. The criminal justice system in prisons is a rising concern in this country that is affecting many and it is time it was improved by reforming the inside of prisons, providing prisoners with more when released, and keeping them under surveillance after release to help ensure they will not return to prison, thus keeping crime at a lower rate.

The judicial system incarcerate based on crimes leading to punishment within the penal system. Although crime has reduced since 1990, the population in these facilities have risen immensely. The intervention of these negative behaviors have lead to disparities within the prison complex. The contribution to prevent and dismay the activity leading to convictions and crime should be conquered through adequate programs. The goal of prevention should be to educate, acknowledge and be an activist. My thesis is do these crimes committed outweigh or justify, their degrading treatment in prison and how does mass incarceration affect us as a society?

She argues that the reforms suggested by the conservative party would cause unintended harm to the people they are attempting to help. The author forms her argument by analyzing the prison reforms initiative put forth by republican politicians. Bruenig concludes that these attempts to bring needed modification to the criminal justice system have not improved the lives of disadvantaged people. By focusing on cutting prison costs the author states, the conservative’s suggestion for reform will fail to provide support to community programs that help people stay out of prison. This would make the reform meaningless. It would also rid communities of prevention programs.

The aging population in the prison system is an underserved and often ignored population. Neglecting to provide adequate care for this population is a societal error that negatively impacts not only the prison population but society as a whole. Prisons are typically used for rehabilitation purposes. Current policies that force prisoners to remain incarcerated well into old age need to be reviewed to assess for alternative solutions that respect the dignity of the aging population and are beneficial to society as well. We must proceed with a question in mind, is the purpose of the prison system to act as a rehabilitation/punishment system or a revenge/punishment system?

Within this paper, you will find a comprehensive review of the United States prison system, and why it needs to analyzed to better support and reform the people of this country. I plan to persuade the other side (politicians and society) into seeing that the way the prison system is now, is not ethical nor economical and it must change. We have one of the world’s largest prison population, but also a very high rate of recidivism. Recidivism is when the prisoners continuously return to prison without being reformed. They return for the same things that they were doing before. So, this leads us to ask what exactly are we doing wrong? When this happens, we as a nation must continuously pay to house and feed these inmates. The purpose of a prison needs to be examined so we can decide if we really are reforming our inmates, or just continuing a vicious cycle. What is the true purpose of prison besides just holding them in a cell? There must be more we can do for these hopeless members of society.

The prison typically houses a population of over 1,200 inmates, and since Bill C-10, one of the major concerns for prisons has been overcrowding in Provincial, Territorial, and Federal correctional facilities by increasing the number of mandatory minimum sentences. It is worthy to note that factor, because it does affect the hardship and destitution that the inmates experience. Due to the difficulty of adjustments into the prison setting, and the psychological and physical trauma that is

In this world we live in many feel that prisons exist to punish, not counsel, offenders. That may be true that Prisons exist for punishment, but they also have an important contribution to make to reducing re-offending by engaging prisoners in rehabilitation programs and purposeful work. Society is flawed in its thinking that by putting criminals in a place away from society we would be better off. To make it worse I am sure that more that 60 percent of Americans are against social reform because they have made up their mind that once a crook, always a crook. This is flawed mainly because it seems to assume that showing people that what they've done is wrong will always accomplish something, that punishing those who commit crimes

With the population of the United States prisons growing every day we need to evaluate if they are doing any good. Personally, I believe that we need to keep our prison system, but we need to take steps in reforming them rather than abolish them altogether. The United States has the highest number of incarcerated people than any other country in the world. We must sit down and look at other countries and see what they are doing different than the United States. In this paper, we will first look at what the prison system in America is like and what we can do to improve upon our prison system. Then, we will also look at the Finland prison systems and see if we can learn anything from them, since they have one of the lowest incarceration and crime rate in the world. We will then look at reforming our prison system or abolishing it. Finally, we will investigate other punishment alternatives other than the prison system that we could use.

Prison reform is a significant issue that the United States government should enforce. It would aid in creating a more organized system of incarceration. Prison reform is an attempt to improve, change, or eliminate certain conditions in prisons. It is believed that it should be enforced due to the cases of overcrowding, lack of proper education, and the lack of rehabilitation that could inform prisoners of societal values. Prison reform would increase the self-esteem that was diminished in the prisoner’s personal history. Prison reform is significantly important as it will heighten the amount of self-worth in the prisoner and cause a decrease in the population of prisoners who return to a life of crime. Recidivism, or chance of recommitting a crime, will therefore be reduced. Prisoner who are released will not have all the negative ideals or influence from the prison that is usually spread until their release. Prison reform will help society if the increase in education and decrease in overcrowding is ensued upon the prison system with this policy.

Hence, the environment of jails is declared to be responsible for turning the individuals into habitual offenders because of their stay with criminals. Theorists, psychologists and researchers have articulated different reasons behind the prisons’ being unable to play the active and powerful role of the reform house for prisoners.

There are rehabilitation facilities for the prisoners to ensure that the offenders do not get back to law breaking but will have acquired certain skills to help earn a living after the sentence period is over. The main reason for the establishment of the rehabilitation centers is to counter the increasing population in the prisons as people are being sentenced every day. The act under which the rehabilitation process is planning to reduce the population through the following means: first is community sentences where the offender will be made to do community works while staying at home; custody plus, which will involve short term of less than a year in prison then after which one works for the community while under rehabilitation; Custody Minus, where the prison sentence is suspended for a shorter period in case the offender has gone against the community sentence; intermittent custody, the sentences are served only during the weekends and there are restrictions on time spent in the community; and then the differed sentences which will depend on the fulfillment of the community based rules, (Robbin, 2004).