Reflection On The Treatment Of Prisoners

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.

The ethical treatment of prisoners is a surprisingly contentious topic, considering how much is known about the conditions and contexts in which human beings function optimally, both physically and mentally. However, ethical discussions frequently have very little to do with what best allows human beings to thrive and function, but instead concern themselves with formulating rules and standards of acceptable behavior, usually out of the mistaken belief that these rules or standards represent some kind of objective, universal ethics. A problem arises when dealing with prisoners, because in many people's minds, the crime or offense of which a prisoner is accused warrants the denial of a certain subset of their rights, but there is not universal acceptance of which rights may be denied and to what extent, due to a disconnect between different modes of ethical thought. Believing in objective, universal ethical standards actually means that anything is justifiable; because these imagined objective standards do not actually exist, people are free to imagine them however they see fit. More utilitarian ethics rooted in conceptions of the social contract are far more useful for determining social policy, because they do not purport to represent objective ethical standards; rather, they acknowledge that ethics and morality are socially constructed, and as such they seek to rationally determine the best practices for achieving any particular goal. By examining two especially

What the rest of the population fails to realize is that they are in fact human beings. Criminals bleed, crave affection, and want understanding just like the rest of us. They just made a bigger mistake than most of us have, or they made the same mistake and just got caught. Prisoners should be awarded their rights while in prison because at the end of the day, they are still human.

The prisoners’ loss of some of their rights is part of their punishment for breaking the law if prisoners kept all their rights prison would not work because prison is meant to take away their freedom (Prisoner’s Rights). Prisoners have taken their rights to court multiple time only proving that the prisoners have a loose grasp of what rights they deserve and what prison really is resulting in many foolish cases which waste tax payer’s dollars (Prisoner’s Rights). For example, a prisoner in Westville Correctional facility in Indiana has filled over a hundred separate lawsuits in a time span of 8 years, including one where he sued because the prison would not provide him with pornographic magazines (Prisoner’s Rights). When committing a crime the prisoners’ lost the right to deny a search because now there is reasonable cause to search an inmate making it constitutional according to the 4th Amendment (Prisoner’s Rights). The 4th Amendment states that search and seizures are allowed when there is reasonable suspicion and being arrested falls under reasonable suspicion according to the U.S. Supreme Court (Strip

That’s the more controversial topic, not the horrendous penitentiary conditions. It is a culture in place, where it seems like the norm, but it if far from normal. Everyone should receive a great education, and the same opportunities as others. No one should be above the law, and everyone should receive the same punishment for the same crimes. In the United States, taxpayers spend about 13,000 dollars a year to provide for an inmate. Lander university tuition is about 10,000 dollars a year. It cost more to send a person to jail than college, but most likely that is not going to

In conclusion, prisoners have more civil rights in American prisons than in many other countries, and prison conditions are much more humane in America than in many other countries. The challenge for the twenty-first century is maintaining a proper balance between the well-being of inmates and ensuring that incarceration is unpleasant enough to act as a deterrent to crime. The courts have developed a body of law that attempts to balance prisoners’ rights with the legitimate goals and concerns of

Sometimes I think of prisons in the same way as running a daycare. The prisoners cry, and they get a pacifier. I say that because, had the inmate not done whatever he or she did to land in prison they would not be there in the first place. Prison is a place or should be of reform and rehabilitation. “Reflecting individual inmates' institutional adjustment more than anything else, the systems typically assigned inmates to one of three grades based on their behavior and offered gradually increased or decreased privileges as they moved up or down the grade structure” (Roberts, J.W., 2000, pg.102). Prisoners male and female should have to earn every little luxury that a prison has to offer. According to what is shown on television, it appears prisoners lay around most their days watching tv and partaking in card games. That does not help with rebuilding self-awareness and good decision-making skills.  “Prisons

There are a number of constitutional amendment(s) that are typically the focus of a number of issues with corrections and correctional policies and practices. One of the amendment(s) that is the focus of this is the Eighth Amendment which means that no one can be the subject of cruel and unusual punishment. This means that everyone should be treated equally and should not be beaten or tortured by the guards, must always be given food and water, and treated humane at all times which means that no matter what their crime was they are still allowed some form of protections by the guards to include being sexual harassed or sexual assaulted. They also retain their First Amendment right because they still have their freedom of speech and religion. Therefore, they must be allowed to practice whatever religion they believe in no matter how someone else may feel about it and they must have some time in order to practice this religion. However, there may be a number of other issues that may be raised but I feel the most important ones would be the Eighth and First Amendment because they are the biggest two that a lot of prisoners deal with in prison.

The United State’s prison system was initially designed to punish and rehabilitate individuals whom were convicted of a felony or other serious offense. Inmates are sentenced for a certain amount of time, or the entirety of their life based on how serious of a crime that person has committed. The Idea of imprisoning a person as a form of punishment dates back to medieval times however, it wasn’t until right before the American Revolution humane prisons started appearing in this country. Today, prisons are more populated than they have ever been and are functioning not only as a place to reform people’s morals, but also as a highly profitable investment for the wealthy to exploit. The Prison system is so devoted to making

To begin with, we should change the way we sentence people because there are other ways to deal with criminals and how long they’re in prison. In source number 2 “Mass Incarceration is a Horrible failure” paragraph 2, states “only 3 percent of people who enrolled in treatment were re-arrested for a violent crime compared to

When citizens of society break federal and state laws they face a punishment known as “ jail” or “ prison”, which purpose is to not only to serve as a punishment but to also act as a program designed to help convicts enter back in to the society as a better person. As citizens of the United States we have civil rights granted to us from the U.S. Constitution that are not meant to just be taken away from us whenever the correctional system feels like it. Many people believe that once a person is put into prison that all of the prisoners’ rights are stripped form them, which is an untrue statement. Some of the basic prisoner laws state that all prisoners must be respected to and their life valued as a human being, it should be no type or

A U.S. prisoner’s rights after conviction are unjust and unconstitutional. The way they are treated and looked upon is disgusting. As Americans, we should be better. We should treat everyone as equals, even criminals because they are humans too. Prisons have been known to date back to around 1852 (“Private Jails in the United States”). Since that time we have managed to find way to violate religious and constitutional rights in the simplest manners. The United States should not let these criminals roam free, but we also can’t stand by and watch.

According to the article titled “Do Inmates Have Rights? If So, What Are They?”, “every inmate has the right to be free under the Eighth Amendment from inhumane treatment or anything considered “cruel and inhumane”. They should have this right because not all of them deserve to be treated poorly or be put somewhere inhumane.

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.

Rehabilitation programmes of prison work and education, for example, are basically directed at instilling a sense of conformity within the inmate. It has often been established that prison work or training experiences all too often fail to impart skills that can be usefully applied once the prisoner is released. Work programmes in this regard are extremely inadequate and will remain so, due largely to the structure of the prison process. At best they achieve a lessening of