The American Government Built Correctional Institutions

The United States has the world's highest incarceration rate. With five percent of the world's population, our country houses nearly twenty-five percent of the world's reported prisoners. Currently there are approximately two million people in American prisons or jails. Since 1984 the prison population for drug offenders has risen from ten percent to now over thirty percent of the total prison population. Federal prisons were estimated to hold 179,204 sentenced inmates in 2007; 95,446 for drug offenses. State prisons held a total of 1,296,700 inmates in 2005; 253,300 for drug offenses. Sixty percent of the drug offenders in prisons are nonviolent and were purely in prison because of drug offenses (Drug War Facts). The question then arises,

Drug abuse is one of the most discouraged behaviors in our country. In the United States of America, we, the people value several things, some of which are freedom, expanding and taking care of our families and our financial security. We, the people, take such things for granted. We also discourage some behavior, such as crime, laziness and use of illegal drugs.

The United States have imprisoned many people in the country than any other due to drug wars. In the year 2014 more than 1.5 million people were arrested for drugs. Drug offenses by itself caused these

Whenever you imagine prison, you think up ideas and violent images that you have seen in the movies or on TV.   Outdated clichés consisting of men eating stale bread and drinking dirty water are only a small fraction of the number of horrible, yet “just” occurrences which are stereotypical of everyday life in prison.   Perhaps it could be a combination of your upbringing, horrific ideas about the punishment which our nation inflicts on those who violate its’ more serious laws that keeps people frightened just enough to lead a law-abiding life. Despite it’s success in keeping dangerous offenders off the streets, the American prison system fails in fulfilling its original design of restoring criminals to being productive members of society, it is also extremely expensive and wastes our precious tax dollars.

The author of Descent into Madness discusses how systems of criminal justice that engage in high levels of disorganization become nothing short of a breeding ground for discontentment among prison inmates. The other main point is that prison staff psychologically are hungry for power. This manifests in the myriad of ways that they treat the inmates in an effort to feel powerful through by retribution through their

The War on Drugs is one cause for the mass incarceration that has become apparent within the United States. This refers to a drastic amount of people being imprisoned for mainly non-violent crime (“Mass Incarceration” 2016). In addition to people who are not an immediate threat to society being locked up for a substantial duration of time, the economic consequences are costing states and taxpayers millions of dollars. Specifically, every one in five people incarcerated is in prison due to some

There are too many people in prison in our country and any people in prison today are non-violent drug offenders. The American war on drugs has targeted people in poverty and minorities, who are more likely to be involved in drug use. This has created a pattern of crime and incarceration and “...[a] connection between increased prison rates and lower crime is tenuous and small.” (Wyler). The prison system in our country today focuses on punishment for the inmates rather than rehabilitation for life after their release.

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.

Drug abuse is shown to be connected to all different kinds of crime in the United States, and in many circumstances, crime is inspired by drug abuse and addiction. In fact, 80% of criminal offenders abuse drugs or alcohol (National Association of Drug Court Professionals). Also, 60% of those who are arrested test positive for illicit drugs when they are arrested, and 60-80% commit another crime, typically drug-related, after leaving prison (National Association of Drug Court Professionals). And, even after these individuals put in the time in prison that would allow them to go through the uncomfortable process of detoxing, 95% of them will chose to go back to drug abuse after prison (National Association of Drug Court Professionals). Given these overwhelming statistics, it is clear that drug abuse, and repeated or continued drug abuse, are a serious problem facing the criminal justice system.

The American state prison was developed in the 19th century. The prison, named as the national penitentiary, holding over 800 prisoners separated in cells, allowed prisoners to socialize in the course of the day. Prisoners were assigned simple tasks such as weaving. The penitentiary is still used in the modern American world but has been expanded because it was initially created to house 500 prisoners. The operations of the penitentiary were based on the system of solitary confinement (Beckett & Herbert, 2010).

Drugs can also affect someone’s likelihood to commit crime because of the effects it has on the person while they are under the influence. Drug use can affect an individual’s speed, memory, alertness and reactions. Crimes related to drugs or alcohol may be the result of the effects that the substances have on their thought processes and behaviour which causes them to commit criminal activity.

A lot of people link drug abuse with crime, at times even with violent crime. This association comes from psychopharmacological association that imply that people may engage in criminal acts after taking some kind of substance known to undermine their judgment as well as self-control result in paranoid thoughts and distortion of inhibitions (Sewell, Poling and Sofuoglu, 189). Though all substances that affect the central nervous system might result in this kind of relationships, scientific information indicates that some type of drugs have a more strong effect than others. Such drugs are alcohol, cocaine, phencyclidine and amphetamines (McCauley, Ruggiero, Resnick and Kilpatrick, 136). Inversely, cannabis and heroin are less associated with desire to commit

There has always been a close association between drugs and crime. Drugs have been seen as a way out of suffering in one’s life and so as long as there is suffering there will always be a market for drugs. The struggle to keep one’s self sane when away from a substance they need can cause them to do crazy and even violent things to others. Things like murdering someone because they did not have proper control of themselves is not something unheard of by any means. These people can been seen as both victims and criminals, as they were not in a sound state of mind when doing these actions, however them doing the actions does not mean they should get off scot-free. The users are only one side of the coin, the other is the drug dealers. The dealers do not have to be selling purely illegal drugs, they may be selling prescription drugs too, but in the pursuit of their own survival in a struggling life, they turn to selling substances to others. By doing so they can even amass a fortune, but this is still a crime, and what people will do to try to get all this potential money can span from robbing to murder. The articles I read from different media support the fact there is indeed a tie with crime and drugs, being that an increase of drugs on the street leads to more crime.

In a study that was done back in 1970 by Sutherland and Cressey, they pointed out that in the U.S. alone, “felons are overrepresented in the addict population, [and] crime rates are increased considerably by drug addiction” (1970, p. 164). Despite having proposed several hypotheses attempting to explain the correlation between drug abuse and crime, they could not reach a conclusion. A decade later, the knowledge about the drug/crime relationship had steadily increased due to numerous studies of the incarcerated or addicted population. However, the information didn’t reveal any viewpoints that made sense aside from heroin. This view was

Drug abuse and crime is not a new concept and the statistics around the problem have continued to rise. According to (Office of Justice Programs, 2011), there were an estimated 1,846,400 state and local arrests for drug abuse in the United States. Additionally, 17 percent of state prisoners and 18 percent of federal inmates said they committed their current offense to obtain money for drugs (Office of Justice Programs, 2011). Based on this information, we can conclude that our criminal justice systems are saturated with drug abusers. The United States has the highest imprisonment rate and about 83 percent of arrests are for possession of illegal drugs (Prisons & Drug Offenders, 2011). Based on these figures, I can conclude that we should be more concerned about solving the drug abusers problems and showing them an alternative lifestyle rather than strict penalty of long term incarceration which will inevitably challenge their ability to be fully functioning citizens after release.