Pros And Cons Of Incarceration

Regardless of what you might see on TV the verdict of “not guilty by the reason of insanity” is an immensely rare plea for anyone. A majority of offenders with a mental illness still end up incarcerated. Even though the United States only makes up 5% of the world's population we account for 25% of the world's prisoners. Which converts to 2.2 million prisoners and about 1.2 million of those people have a mental illness (Fellner). Mental illness within our jails and prisons has become very prevalent within our correctional systems over the last 10 years. The number of men and women who have a mental illness that end up in jail or prison grows day by day. For those who do not go into the prison with a mental illness, will very likely develop some form of mental illness after being released from incarceration. The mentally ill do not belong in prison, the purpose for incarceration is retribution, incapacitation, deterrence and rehabilitation, and though it is originally meant for all of these purposes, it has lost its meaning. Correctional facilities are not built to provide treatment for the mentally ill, and the people who have been diagnosed with a mental illness cannot get the long-term treatment they need inside of a prison cell.

In this article it states what all methods are used for the death penalty. In Eight states it allows electrocution (Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Kentucky, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee, and Virginia). Three states it allows the gas chamber (Arizona, Missouri, and Wyoming). Three other states allow hanging (Delaware, New Hampshire, and Washington). Two other states allow the firing squad (Oklahoma and Utah), though only Oklahoma is the one that uses it. Utah allowed that option before it was banned in 2004.

Michael Tarver is a 55 year old man who is serving a life sentence for murder in Atlanta, Georgia. Tarver is a diabetic with circulation problems, while in jail he got a cut on his leg. After receiving this cut he went months in confinement without proper care and because of his diabetes he was prone to infection and had to have his leg amputated. In 2012 Tarver filed a lawsuit written in longhand and filed without the consultation of an attorney. Dr. Chiquita Fye is the 65 year old woman who has been the medical director at this prison since 2006. This “lawsuit asserted that Fye was deliberately indifferent to his injury as he languished for months in the prison infirmary. Deliberate indifference to a prison inmate’s medical needs violates the Eighth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.” (The Associated Press) Many inmates have filed lawsuits against this doctor all complaining that she neglected them of proper care. And there is so many other cases out there showing that prisons do not give proper care to inmates who need it.

There are currently five different ways to carry out the death penalty in the United States. The first is death by firing squad. Death occurs because of massive damage to the body's vital organs, heart, central nervous system, or by a combination of these different effects with hemorrhage (The Execution Protocol). Probably the quickest way to execute a human being with a gun is to fire a single bullet from a piston at point blank range into the head. Yet in Idaho and Utah, the law specifies a five-man rifle squad.

If the defendant was found guilty in one of the thirty five United States that enforced the death penalty, he would most likely be executed by means of lethal injection. Lethal injection has proven to be the most humane way of euthanizing criminals. Before this, up to 4 different methods had been used in the United States. These included hangings, firing squads, gas chambers and the infamous electric chair.

Mass incarceration has been an issue in the United States since the start of the War on Drugs, because of the political agenda attached to the “tough on crime” regimen thousands of people have suffered as a consequence. The solution to this is one that can only be possibly solved by approaching through several angles. The ten steps presented by Michael Tonry, are an innovative and have merit to some extent. However, mass incarceration results from more than unjust sentencing laws, which is his main focus. If ever we are to resolve the issue, society and the criminal justice system must come together to completely reevaluate what we consider to be “tough on crime” and redefine the purpose of prisons, strictly punishment or rehabilitation. The focus has to shift from harsh sentencing, stigma, racial discrimination to a basic form of rehabilitation and reduction of the prison system in general. The criminal justice system has to do what they are actually meant to do and focus on rehabilitation measures, and when possible completely stop interaction with the prison system all together.

At the beginning of the semester our Professor gave a speech on her personal accomplishment and to start she asked us how many of us knew someone who either was or had been incarcerated. Most of us in the class raised our hands in the affirmative, including myself. This may not seem like much in a classroom with roughly 25 students, but it does have some merit. The United States of America accounts for “5% of the world’s population, but 25% of the world’s prison population” (DuVernay, 13th). Within the last year California legislators have introduced Senate Bill 10 or the Bail: pretrial release bill, which seeks to eliminate pretrial detention and bail requirements for accused individuals who meet public safety criteria ("SB-10 Bail: pretrial release", 2017-2018). I argue that SB 10 doesn’t go far enough and should include that low level non-violent first offenders be offered alternative methods to incarceration. A policy such as SB 10 would allow California to serve as a model, reducing the effects of mass incarceration, creating a fairer system and eliminating coerced plea deals.

Mass Incarceration is a growing dilemma in the United States that populates our prisons at an alarming rate. Michelle Alexander is a professor at Ohio State University and a graduate of Stanford law school. She states in her award winning book, The new Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness “In less than thirty years, the U.S. penal population exploded from around 300,000 to more than 2 million” (Alexander, 6). These young men and women are unable to afford a decent lawyer because they come from such a poverty-stricken background. Men and women are at a financial disadvantage in our justice system. Lawyers and attorneys cost a fortune and most people can just simply not afford them. Others plead to their charges because

Imagine being locked up in a cramped prison alongside thousands of other inmates just for committing a minor crime. When you finally become liberated from the strict institution that’s been barricading you from society, you find that you’re stripped of basic rights to education, welfare, and so on. Scary is it not? That’s the harsh reality behind mass incarceration. Mass incarceration has been an issue ever since the dawn of the “drug wars” back in the 80’s and 90’s. It resulted in millions of people getting locked up for minor crimes, mainly nonviolent drug crimes, which then led lengthy prison sentences due to mandatory sentencing laws such as the Crime Bill that Bill Clinton enacted in 1994 (BBC). Consequently, the prison population nearly quintupled and thousands of men went missing from society. What could fuel such motivation to lock away millions of people? In “The New Jim Crow”, Michelle Alexander holds a firm belief that the racist fictional character “Jim Crow” is still alive and that black men are being wrongfully locked away due to racial prejudice. Although she has compelling arguments on the topic of mass incarceration, they simply don’t account for the entire truth. Only a slight percentage of the prison population consists of inmates serving mandatory sentences and the truth behind mass incarceration ultimately results from the prevention of drug-related violence along with improperly motivated prosecutors.

Imagine being locked up in a cramped prison along side thousands of other inmates just for committing a minor crime. When you are finally liberated from the strict institution that’s been barricading you from society, you find that you’re stripped of basic rights to education, welfare, and so on. Scary is it not? Well, that’s the harsh reality behind mass incarceration. Mass incarceration has been an issue ever since the dawn of the “drug wars” back in the 80’s and 90’s. Millions of people were locked up for minor crimes, mostly nonviolent drug crimes, which resulted in lengthy prison sentences due to mandatory sentencing laws such as the Crime Bill that Bill Clinton enacted in 1994. As a result, the prison population nearly quintupled and many men went missing from society. What could fuel such motivation to lock away millions of people? In “The New Jim Crow”, Michelle Alexander holds a firm belief that the racist fictional character “Jim Crow” is secretly being kept alive and that many black men are being wrongfully locked away due to racial prejudice. Although she has some compelling arguments on the topic of mass incarceration, they’re simply not the case in today’s society. Only a small percentage of the prison population is made up of inmates serving mandatory sentences and the truth behind mass incarcerations ultimately comes down to the prevention of drug-related violence as well as improper prosecutors.

Mass incarceration brought a bigger issue than people being locked up in jail. After people were released from jail they would have to go to court and figure out their situation was, figure out what would happen to then when they go back home. For those that lived in public housing and their name was the one that was on the contract they were forced to leave the house, If the individual was a parent and they were the only parent that the kids had; the parents would lose their kids and be homeless. Because the individual has been to jail and now is homeless they are no longer eligible for a job because of their criminal records. Not only are these individuals no longer eligible for housing or jobs they also can’t have custody of their kids and

The United States is home to five percent of the world population, but 25 percent of the world’s prisoner. There must be a change to the current prison system which is doing more harm than good in American society and must be reformed. Reasons for this claim are that American prisons are too overcrowded with inmates, which creates a dangerous and unhuman environment. The cost to run a prison has gotten too expensive for tax payer pockets, and lastly the prison system is more as a punishment instead of rehabilitation with about sixteen percent of inmates most serious offence being drug charges. Prisons fall short of reforming criminals and the government is obligated to completely reform the prison systems in the United States.

In the previous 30 years, the United States has come to depend on detainment as its reaction to a wide range of wrongdoings. Research has found that, “overcrowded prison populations continue to be the greatest challenge facing the American prison system” (O’connor, 2014). Indeed, even minor infringements of parole or probation frequently prompt an arrival to jail. Moreover, probation and parole violations led to quickly imposed sentences. Complications in this field is only fueled the recidivism rate, which of course worsened the overcrowding epidemic (Camper, 2012). This has made a prison arrangement of uncommon size in this country. In the 1980's, when Ronald Regan started "The War on Drugs", the individuals who were captured with even little measure of drugs were given to a great degree long prison sentences. Eventually, following 35 years, these elderly detainees are greatly wiped out and failing horrendously due to old age. The war on drugs quit nothing, yet it filled the confinement facilities and the enterprises accepted control because of the money they could make. As per slate magazine, the distinguished court case, Brown v. Plata, expressed that congestion levels in California jails—where the normal inhabitance rate over all state establishments was 187 percent from 1991 through 2010—added up to a type of pitiless and irregular discipline. What is the motivation behind giving someone a fifty-year sentence for drugs? In case he has done a wrongdoing,

The issue of the death penalty has been of great concern and debate for a number of years now. Prior to 1976, the death penalty was banned in the United States. In 1976, though, the ban was lifted, and many states adopted the death penalty in their constitutions. Currently, there are 38 states that use the death penalty, and only 12 states that do not. The states that have the death penalty use a number of ways to go about executing the defendant. Thirty-two states use lethal injection, 10 use electrocution, 6 use the gas chamber, 2 use hanging, and 2 states use a firing squad (Death Penalty Information Center, 1997). The 12 states that do not have the death penalty are Alaska, Hawaii, Iowa, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota,

The aim of imprisonment is to go prison as a punishment and supposedly not for punishment. Punishment is not an appropriate response, prison damages people and should be used as a last resort. Most people have nothing to lose when being sent to prison, they tend to be early school leavers, addicts, with poor skills, history of unemployment, homelessness and mental health issues. Not only that but most prisoners have experienced abuse in childhood or violence in their home. They were victims then and still they are victims in prison, only they are being further punished instead of being helped. Carol Coulter has stated that punishment goes beyond the prisoner to entangle innocent family members. Stigmatism, alienation and lack of social support