Prison System: The American Correctional System

The United States has the highest rate of incarceration among the developed countries, with 2.2 million currently in jails and prisons. The number of inmates with mental disorders has been increasing during the past three decades, most likely the result of the deinstitutionalization of the state mental health system. Correctional institutions have become the de facto state mental hospitals. There are more seriously and persistently mentally ill people in prisons than in all state hospitals in the United States. When incarcerated these people face many disadvantages on top of their sickness. They do not receive the psychiatric help they need, nor do they receive proper medication or therapy. In addition, the guards do not know how to properly deal with people with mental disabilities. With so many issues in the criminal justice system there is no room for improvement for these inmates.

The US Correctional System has many different types of punishments, which are based upon the type of crime the offender commits. Murder, Rape and Identity theft are all crimes, crimes that carry different types of punishments. Some crimes such as murder for example have different levels that are based on it nature, first, second, and third degree murder are all three types of murder but carry a different punishment. There are some crimes though that does not carry a large jail or prison sentence such as driving under the influence (DUI). This type of crime is most like going to sentence the offender to alcohol awareness (AA) classes as a form of punishment, in hopes of rehabilitating the offender to give up

As a whole, literature on the topic of mental illness in our country and specifically in our criminal justice system had a reoccurring theme. There are millions of individuals who suffer from mental illness but are improperly being handled through the criminal justice system. These individuals are deemed criminal just by their acts and their mental health state is not overly examine. Jails and prisons are being overcrowded. State prisons and jails are overpopulated anywhere from 15 to 32% (Spending Money in All the Wrong Places: Jails & Prisons).

Throughout history into today, there have been many problems with our prison system. Prisons are overcrowded, underfunded, rape rates are off the charts, and we as Americans have no idea how to fix it. We need to have shorter sentences and try to rehabilitate prisoners back to where they can function in society. Many prisoners barely have a high school education and do not receive further education in jail. Guards need to pay more attention to the well being of the inmates and start to notice signs of abuse and address them. These are just a few of the many problems in our prison systems that need to be addressed.

The United States prison system struggles eminently with keeping offenders out of prison after being released. According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics, more than third of all prisoners who were arrested within five years of released were arrested within six months after release, with more than half arrested by the end of the year (Hughes, Wilson, & Beck, 2001). Among prisoners released in 2005 in 23 states with available data on inmates returned to prison, about half (55 percent) had either a parole or probation violation or an arrest for a new offense within three years that led to imprisonment (Durose, Cooper, & Snyder, 2014). Why are there many ex-offenders going back to prison within the first five years of release? Are there not enough resources to help offenders before or/and after being released from prison.

Question: Discuss the history of the prison system in the United States. Be sure to identify the various stages that the American prison system has gone through. Also identify what problems were present with each stage as you see them.

In 2015, America had four times the number of prisoners since 1980, roughly from 500,000 to 2.2 million people. The United States today is five percent of the world population, yet it holds twenty-five percent of the world’s prisoners. 4.5 million people are on probation or parole in the US. Altogether, there is a total of about 6.8 million people under some form of correctional control. If one were to combine the number of people in prison and jail with those who are under parole or probation supervision, it would amount to one in every thirty-five adults, which is 2.8 percent of the correctional control population.

Our incarceration system once pursued two firm yet opposing goals: retribution and rehabilitation. The Age of Enlightenment spurred an influx of imprisonment ideologies that soon congealed into a justifiable approach towards criminals. Jails, workhouses, and prisons aimed to reintegrate lawbreakers back into society but not before they were punished. The precarious balance between such contradictory motives unfortunately proved impossible. When did this system, once considered virtuous and just, become the hallmark of inequality? On September 27th, 2015, Pope Francis reflected upon this fact during a visit to a Philadelphia jail, “It is painful when we see prison systems, which are not concerned to care for wounds, to soothe pain, to offer new possibilities.” This moving sentiment resonated with the American population, the majority failing to realize that one third of the world 's female prison population is incarcerated in the United States. If the magnitude of that figure does not astound you, maybe the fact that every 1 in 15 American prisoners are black, while only 1 in 106 prisoners are white, will. These statistics, reported by Harper’s Index, quantify the blatant corruption of the American incarceration system and the institutionalized racism America has sustained throughout it’s short life in places where we may not have suspected.

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.

America’s prison system is not broken. Since, its conception, a little before the nineteenth century, the dominant white social class has maintained its racial, and social prejudice through the enslavement of the prison industrial complex. You see, to them it is working just fine. From the police force deemed to “serve and protect,”’ to the predominately elected all white male prosecutors, to the continuing construction of more jail houses, and to the failed “War on Drugs” America’s “Home of the Free” is governed, and ran by the same white men, who have the same agenda. Sadly, this is not new information, and there seems to be no end in sight. Instead, prison enslavement in America continues to grow at an alarming rate.

A few solutions for the rising mentally ill inmates in prison is to : keep a working public mental health treatment system so that those that are mentally ill do not end up in prison or jail. Redo the mental illness treatment laws and practices in communities that will help eliminate obstacles to treatment for those people that are too ill to recognize they in face need help. This will help these individuals before they are so out of the normal that they commit acts that result in their arrest. Reform jail and prison treatment laws so inmates with mental illness can receive appropriate and necessary treatment just as inmates with medical conditions receive appropriate and necessary medical treatment. Implement and promote jail diversion programs

The Unites States of America’s prison system is a flawed mess. To open the eyes of our government we must first take a stand against unlawful government decisions, and show support for the greater good of society. What are our own tax-dollars paying for, what are the flaws in the justice/prison system, why is overcrowding in prisons causing tension, and what are ways our society and government can rebuild the system that has been destroyed over the years? Most criminals in prisons are not a danger to our society because they commit crimes just to use jail as a shelter, causing the overcrowding of prisons and wasting away of what we really should be paying for.

The United States corrections system is organized distinctive structures that retain certain similarities with the Chinese prisons system. However there remain significant points of departure such as the prevalence of privately run correctional facilities in the United States. This differs greatly from the Chinese system of corrections which relies solely on government-operated public prisons whereby the state does not seek profit as is the case with private prisons (Shen, 2015).

The purpose of the American correctional system is to keep criminals of the streets who may cause harm to the public, to protect the citizens of the United States and to punish criminals who are found guilty of committing crimes. The United States correctional system is very ineffective. The cost of incarcerating criminals is astronomical; the reason these criminals are in jail is because they need to be punished, and most of the prisoner’s lives are corrupt before and after prison.

Prison inmates, are some of the most "maladjusted" people in society. Most of the inmates have had too little discipline or too much, come from broken homes, and have no self-esteem. They are very insecure and are "at war with themselves as well as with society" (Szumski 20). Most inmates did not learn moral values or learn to follow everyday norms. Also, when most lawbreakers are labeled criminals they enter the phase of secondary deviance. They will admit they are criminals or believe it when they enter the phase of secondary deviance (Doob 171).