132 People In Jail Essay

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).

The overcrowding prison reflects that the inmate population has grown much faster than the funding for prisons, which is controlled at the state level. In most cases, state funding has not come close to keeping up with the rise in the prison population, leading to decrepit prison infrastructure that is wholly inadequate for housing such large numbers of inmates. Without capacity to house inmates properly, some prisons have resorted to having prisoners sleep in gymnasiums, and many have overcrowded cells to accommodate the extra bodies. This overcrowding has led to deteriorating cleanliness of prisons and declining safety. Today, non-violent prisoners are forced to live in close quarters with violent ones, and the results are predictable.

On average, CDCR imprisons over 167,000 adult prisoners and is operating at 188% capacity (Lynch, Lecture 3-1-10) while the recidivism rate of prisoners in a study is 34% (221). With stricter policies, the prison population grew faster than the prison buildings can expand. Gyms and other recreational rooms in prison were converted into rooms to house hundreds of beds for inmates. Being housed in such close quarters has dire effects on prisoners. Haney notes that “overcrowding affects prisoners mental and physical health by increasing the level of uncertainty with which they regularly must cope” (202). Farington reports that inmates from overcrowded prisons are more likely to reoffend once released from prison than inmates from less crowded prison (206). Overcrowding has more detrimental effect on youth. Younger prisoners are more likely to engage in prison fights and more likely to be victimized by older inmates (205).Inmates often feel the need to project a tough emotionless image. Prisoners join

The state's existing prisons were designed to house 66,000 inmates (one inmate per prison cell). As of September 1994, however, the prisons housed 120,000 inmates, resulting in an average overcrowding level of 182 percent. (Another 5,000 inmates are housed in community correctional centers that are operated by either private organizations, cities, or counties.) Additional prisons designed to house 14,000 inmates have been funded and are either under construction or ready for occupancy. When these new prisons are completed (around 1998) the design capacity of the state's prisons will total 80,000.

Prisoners should be granted privileges depending on the type of crime they committed. There’s different types of felonies that determine how long a prisoner is going to stay in prison. Violent crimes such as rape, armed robbery, and murder are most likely to get life sentences . Most prisoners have about the same amount of rights. There’s those prisoners who committed non-violent felonies/crimes but are serving life sentences. Prisoners who committed non-violent felonies; does not involve high levels of damage or serious injury, should have more rights than someone who killed people, betrayed the nation or raped people.

Society has to know the real purpose of jail. Automatically we hear jail and we think of vicious criminals and then produce negative stigmas. We must keep in mind a jail’s main intention is to hold the rabble (disorderly crowd), not the other persons. The offenders are held there, tried for crimes they committed and then find out if they are found guilty or not. If they are found guilty, they will be faced with some sort of punishment.

Since 1985, the Jail Populations have nearly tripled with the top 3 States that exceed incarceration rates being Louisiana, Texas and Mississippi. Unfortunately, some jails face overcrowding everyday, and are forced to resort to denying prisoners or finding alternative means to reduce the number of prisoners. It is reported that most of the overcrowding occurs in urban jails (e.g. The Tombs in NYC, the Cook County Jail in Chicago, the Los Angeles County Jail and the Old District of Columbia Jail) (Siegel & Bartillo, 2014).

Overcrowding prisons can be toxic not only for the inmates but also the corrections officers who are constantly working. There are better ways to protect our communities than mass incarceration. In the United States, incarceration defers punishment based on the severity and kind of the crime and. For example, allow drug offenders to serve a shorter sentence, release more elderly prisoners, give prisoners a full year off their sentences for participating in drug rehabilitation, and send more foreign inmates to their home countries. In the article Prison Overcrowding Threatens Public Safety and State Budgets, the author informs “From the collected data, the Initiative found that the incarceration system in this country “hold[s] more than 2.4 million people in 1,719 state prisons, 102 federal prisons, 2,259 juvenile correctional facilities, 3,283 local jails” (Williams 1). This was published in 2014,

Are Private Prisons being run for profits or are they just a solution to the current problems we are dealing with today in society? There has been a recent debate on whether private prisons are being run for profit for their corporations or for the people. Especially with the expected increase in stocks on the two major private prison corporations due to the election of our new President Donald Trump. There has been many different problems and views arising to this. Many of the problems I will be talking about that include the important topic of mass incarceration and the safety of the inmates and staff at these facilities.

Overcrowding prisons are an issue that has been influencing the United States prison population for decades, however what is the true significance of overcrowding. As indicated by Jeff Bleich (1989) “the term overcrowding is repetitive, since crowding already refers to a higher level of social density than is desired”. An overcrowded prison is a shocking condition that causes outrage and dissatisfaction among detainees (Haney, 2014). This condition is so undesirable that one can consider it as unconstitutional. An overcrowded prison is commonly recognized as being the fundamental explanation behind appalling misconduct and the expansion of recidivism. According to Wagner and Sakala (2014), United States prison system “hold more than 2.4

This research paper is to explore the impact of prison overcrowding. The United States has a, what seems to be everlasting, prison overcrowding problem. Not only does the United States have this dilemma, but also many other countries have overcrowded prisons as well. Many issues need to be addressed; ways to reduce the prison populations and how to effectively reduce prison cost without jeopardizing community safety are major issues that need attention. Successfully rehabilitating inmates can play an important role in the fight to

Incarceration is not meant to be fun. Prison overcrowding is becoming major issue all over the United State. Our prison and jail inmates are growing dramatically. More and more people are committing more crime, which cause them sometimes locked up. Each state has a different way of sentence offenders. The dictionary define overcrowding as beyond what is usual or comfortable, simple means you cannot have more than the amount of inmate in a cell than the state allows you to. A jail cell design for four inmates can’t have six inmates in there. California is one of the state that has been infected by prison overcrowding and need to come to a conclusion on how to fix and prevents it from happening. The number of inmates are increasing based on their

The United States has the largest prison population in the world and it is growing, approximately 2,266,800 adults are incarcerated. Currently 52 percent of prisoners are going back to prison. Literature can be a meaningful way to rehabilitate prisoners, it will help them to express their feelings and their emotions through writing, more job opportunities when they are released from prison or even in prison and decrease the percentage of people returning back to prison. As a result,the issue is a very controversial one, and it leads to debate.

Recidivist: A recidivist is defined as any criminally sentenced inmate released to the street from a (DOC) Department of Correction facility during 2011 who is re-incarcerated for a new sentence or violation of parole or probation to a Massachusetts state or county facility or to a federal facility within three years of his/her release.