Prisoning In Prison Overcrowded In The United States Prison System

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).

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).

In the 1970s and 1980s, a massive amount of inmates began fillin up the United States prison systems. This huge rate of growth in this short amount of time, has greatly contributed to the prison overcrowding that the United States faces today. In fact, the prisons are still filled to the seams. This enormous flood of inmates has made it practically impossible for prison officials to keep up with their facilities and supervise their inmates. One of the main reasons why many prisons have become overcrowded is because of states’ harsh criminal laws and parole practices (Cohen). “One in every 100 American adults is behind bars, the highest incarceration rate in the world” (Cohen). The amount of inmates in corrections systems, throughout the

Prison’s were established a long time ago to try to put an end to the rapidly increasing crime rate, however over time we are seeing the effectiveness of the most prisons decreasing. As a result of this epidemic, prisons have a higher recidivism rate and over 40 percents are currently operating over maximum capacity (Holder.) Through different types of research, we are finding out that our prison systems are no longer effective and there is a serious need for improvement. The United States has only 5 percent of the world’s population, yet we incarcerate almost ¼ of the worlds prisoners (Holder.)

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Due to the “war on drugs”, prison overcrowding is becoming more and more of an issue, putting a strain on not just the law enforcement but our society as well. America has been implementing a “war on drugs” policy since the early nineteen – seventies. Since the creating of the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) in 1973 under Richard Nixon, then the Office of National Drug Control Policy under Ronald Reagan in 1988, the United States has found themselves in an endless war and in constant debt huge amounts of money.

Over the past years, the prison population has increased dramatically. Can overcrowding in prison contribute to inmates not receiving the right treatment? Are inmates receiving the proper care while behind bars? Does locking away individuals who struggle with health and medical needs cause people to become even more unhealthy while they are incarcerated then released from prison. Unfortunately, it is clear that there are many health/ medical issues that affects inmates while they are incarcerated.

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.

Due to budget crises in states across the United States of America, state governments must cut funding to their punishment facilities causing overcrowding in prisons to increase every day. Overcrowded prisons pose a potential breeding ground for crime as hundreds of inmates are squeezed into small accommodations. Thousands of low-level offenders receive jail sentences each day, these criminals make up about a third of the inmates in the United States. In the words of Republican Governor Mitch Daniels of India, in the conservative National Review magazine, “We are imprisoning, in our most expensive spaces, more people for relatively minor, nonviolent offenses, like low-level property and drug violations. Some of our guests are not with the state corrections system long enough for any rehabilitation, substance-abuse counseling or job training to take place” (Katel). Evidently attention and change to this neglected criminal punishment system need to be addressed. This issue remains a troubling problem in our country, state governments offer the best possible solutions to prison overcrowding such as directing local officials to perform and improve prison construction, rethinking criminal law and responding to budgetary concerns.

When thinking of the prison system in the United States, one fact that may be shocking is that it ranks as one of the highest per capita inmate populations in the world. The United States has seen an ever growing prison population over the last few decades. The results of prison inmate inflation are causing more strains than facilities can handle. The increasing number of inmates is a result of the reluctance to help rehabilitate inmates and develop their ability to function and add value to society.

Prison overcrowding continues to be one several challenges of criminal justice in the United States. Even though many prisons have been built to throughout the country to accommodate the growing numbers of inmates. The most prison overcrowding is a harsh reality in many jurisdictions and in the federal systems. One of the issues is the true definition of the prison capacity. The different types of capacities are rated capacity, operational capacity and design capacity. Rated capacity refers to the size of the inmate population that a facility can handle according to the judgment of experts. Operational capacity is the number of inmates that a facility can effectively accommodate based on an appraisal of the institution's staff, programs, and

Almost 1.6 million people in the United States is currently imprisoned. That means that 1 in 200 Americans are serving time in federal and local prisons right now. Overcrowding in prisons is a nationwide issue for the U.S. Additionally, the cost of imprisoning this amount of people comes at a high cost. At the federal level, the U.S. spends around $7 billion for costs associated with operating federal prisons. While this is a significant monetary investment, it does not seem to be doing much to prevent crime. Four out of ten people who leave federal prison end up being re-arrested or having their

When jails and prisons are built, like other buildings, they come with an occupancy limit for good reason. This is for the well-being of everyone in the building, but also, should there be an emergency and the building needs to be evacuated, everyone will be able to get out quickly and safely. If a building is overcrowded, there is a chance that with there being so many extra people in the building, that some people might get trampled, or trapped in the building. When it comes to jails, the number of people allowed to be in them is important because that accounts for the number of beds that are in the jail, as well as the number of resources in the jail for each person to live seemingly comfortable. Having an extra 132 people in a jail that was originally built to only hold 332 is very excessive and cannot be comfortable for anyone in it, nor is it safe for some inmates. Those who suffer from being mentally ill probably face the most issues with it. Being in jail is already the wrong place for anybody with a mental illness to be, but to be there and not have any personal space may trigger some people to act out, especially if that is not something that are used to.

A big issue in prisons are overcrowding, it was previously stated that 12 million inmates that around the world that is in prison. Even after considering that that is the average of all prisons put together there is still a huge amount of people living in one prison.“ Jails now hold some 730,000 people in custody, more than triple their population in 1983”( Speiser). If the prisons population was triple the population size in 1983 and it is

When it comes to prison overcrowding, many factors cause it to occur. Part of the overcrowding can be attributed both to specific policies. For instance, the “War on Drugs” has enacted harsher penalties for drug violations, directly increasing the number incarcerated. Part of this policy includes mandatory sentences, which indirectly affect the overcrowding. More people are incarcerated for longer periods, leading to conditions so inhumane that in 2011, the Supreme Court declared one prison violated the Eighth Amendment. While policies are partially responsible for overcrowding in prisons, criminal behavior also needs to be taken into account. The USA has one of the highest recidivism rates in the world—within five years of release from state prison, law enforcement rearrests 76.6% of inmates.. Many are arrested for violating parole, and some go on to commit entirely new crimes. Apparently, there is little motivation to staying out of prison, what with the minimal rehabilitation programs and general stigma laid on criminals in the work force. This makes the prison system, in itself, ineffectual, and the attempts to decrease inmate population similarly pointless.