The Pros And Cons Of Prison Overcrowding

The United States prison system is considered today to be one of the most flawed and corrupt systems of the modern world. Given this fact, it is unsurprising that one of the most talked about issues in the US today is prison reform. Prison reform is a phrase which refers to the attempt to improve conditions inside prisons, establishing a more effective penal system, or implementing alternatives to incarceration. The US has spent the past twenty years gradually working to improve its prisons, and even recently strives to better the federal and state prison system as a whole. One of the main goals of prison reform is reducing recidivism, which is the chance of an incarcerated person re-offending. One of the main ways to do this is to give inmates ways to spend their time that will better them and prepare them to re-enter society as a fully productive, rehabilitated citizen. This facet of prison reform is the basis for the Prison Reform and Redemption Act of 2017. This bill, which was to be reviewed on Wednesday, April 25 but is

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   Outdated clichés consisting of men eating stale bread and drinking dirty water are only a small fraction of the number of horrible, yet “just” occurrences which are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.

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.

Over the past few decades, the United States has witnessed a huge surge in the number of individuals in jail and in prison. Evidence suggests the mass imprisonment policy from the last 40 years was a horrible catastrophe. Putting more people in prison not only ruined lives, it disrupted families, prevented ex-prisoners to find housing, to get an education, or even a good job. Regrettably, the United States has a higher percent of its population incarcerated than any other country. America is responsible for a quarter of the world’s inmates, and its incarceration rate is increasing exponentially. The expense produced by these overcrowded prisons cost the country a substantial amount of money every year. Although people are incarcerated for a number of reasons, the country’s prisons are focused on punishment rather than reform, and the result is a misguided system that fails to rehabilitate criminals or discourage crime. By researching mass incarceration, I hope to get society to understand that incarcerating an individual not only effects the family, but we will look at the long term consequences on society and how the United States can remain safe and, at the same time, undo much of the damage that results from large-scale imprisonment.

The U.S. prison system is one of many great controversies when compared to other correctional systems. America’s prison population has increased by 700% (2.4 million current inmates) since the start of the war on drugs in 1971. As a result of this “war”, people that fall into the racial minority have suffered as a direct consequence of unjust legislation. Our prison system is known for its overrepresentation of minorities such as Blacks and Hispanics. This unfortunately gives these groups of people a perennial negative stigma as a result. I argue that the U.S. prison industrial-complex emphatically displays signs of prejudice and racism and disproportionately incarcerates people of color at a rate higher than whites. Yes, there are skeptics who think “the left’s prison-complex” is wrong about their theory of mass incarceration but the statistical data and concrete facts in support of my argument are very compelling.

America has a major problem with overcrowding in its prisons, and action needs to be taken. Since 1970, the inmate population in the United States has increased over 700%, far greater than the general population as a whole. This has led to declining quality of life within the prison system including 8th Amendment violations and it represents a needless drain on state finances. There is simply no value in keeping non-violent convicts in the prison system, sometimes for years. The costs are high, and there is very little benefit to America. The justice system needs to be overhauled to relieve the massive crowding in US prisons.

Have you ever been to prison before? Unfortunately it is not uncommon for many people in the United States to end up in prison at any given time in their life. Chances are, if you have not been to prison you know somebody that has been imprisoned, as America has the highest rate of incarceration in the whole world. Although America’s population only accounts for 5% of the world's population, we have the highest prison rate at 25% of the whole world’s incarcerated population (Hillary Rodham Clinton, 2015). Why do we continue to see these prisons overcrowded, and how exactly does this affect the inmates?

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.

Prison overcrowding has been seen as a small issue in the eyes of big news organization however the problem may be breaking through your door soon enough. Many citizens have pushed several proposals on how to solve this problem but the state and federal government have denied all of these responses and have instead either freed criminals or have kept them as they were. Those who try and tackle problems like these often give up due to the fact that even more time and money may be needed to solve their wasteful solutions. Incentive programs such as work release and community service have only blinded law abiding citizens from the truth, that the government will not due what is necessary to de-escalate overcrowding in prisons.

Question: Discuss the history of the prison system in the United States. Be sure to identify the various stages that the American prison system has gone through. Also identify what problems were present with each stage as you see them.

Despite the large amount of criminals in prison, the crimes: murder, rape, and others has only “accounted for 10.6 percent of the total Crime Index” (Access Integrity Unit). The vast majority of criminals locked up are held on drug addiction or petty theft charges and not more serious offenses such as murder or assault. To put it simply, the cells that were built with taxpayers’ dollars holds 89.4 percent of criminals that are of no real threat to society. While the jail cells continue to fill up with occupants that has no business being behind bars, the general public will not feel any safer until new laws are passed to insure lesser offenders can get the help they so desperately need.

In the United States, the prison institutions, and county jail’s population numbers are growing rapidly. Offenders are receiving lesser sentencing and more federal funding disbursed to reentry and reintegration programs to reduce the cost of incarceration and to reduce recidivism. A recent Vera Institute of Justice (Vera) study of 40 states found that in 2011 the average annual total cost per inmate was $31,286, and the number of incarcerated people have quadrupled reaching 1.4 million in 2010 (Center on Sentencing and Corrections, Vera Institute of Justice, 2013, p.128). The criminal justice system has found alternative ways to deal with the overcrowding and cost of incarceration. I believe that community based programs benefit the government,

Mortimer Zuckerman, owner and publisher of U.S. News & World Report, where he serves as editor-in-chief wrote “Harsh Sentencing, Overstuffed Prisons--it's Time for Reform”, which he said “Too many people are in prison who should not be there. How many? Most of them! It is not that they are innocent of the offenses that put them there. It is that they are in prison mainly because we have criminalized vast areas for nonviolent offenders and compounded that with a distorted sentencing system.” The federal level, nonviolent offenders account for 90% of prisoners. Federal prisons today house nearly 40% more inmates than they were designed for, most of them repeat offenders. The overcrowding of prisons encourages the prison administration to focus on harsh and inhumane means of discipline to maintain control over the large number of inmates. Prisoners in overcrowded correctional settings interact with more unfamiliar people, under close quarters that offer little or no privacy, where their basic needs are less likely to be addressed or met. Overcrowding in prisons puts inmates under painful stress and reduces the services available to them. I believe that prison overcrowding can be reduced by Proposition 47, which made California the first state to make changes to the status of certain crimes that were once a felony into misdemeanors, including drug possession charges where the drug was solely for personal use, exempting their inclusion from the three-strike law. It would also

Although this would not eliminate all crime, it would significantly reduce the amount, meaning there would no longer be a need to expand our prison system. In order to do this, we must target the aforementioned issues that plague most of America's inner cities and underprivileged African-American or Latino neighborhoods. Through creating a better environment for these young children, we could halt the creation of lifetime criminals, where going to jail is no longer a rite of passage but rather an abnormality. In order to do this, we improve the schools in the area, we emphasize programs such as sports which occupy these children with things to do rather than fall into mischief. For those that do end up in trouble, we enhance rehabilitation in our juvenile justice system because a child's mind is easier to mold than an adults. Overall, by striving to improve the lives of those living in areas where crime is more common, we are working towards the goal of solving our prison

After reading thoroughly through the articles I found during the searching process, I went from only knowing fifteen percent of the topic to a hundred percent. Prison overcrowding has been an issue for plenty of years now and I am curious on why they still haven’t came up with a reasonable solution. The correction centers tend to come up with the worst and most unfair possible resolution to this issue. White-collar criminals are usually favored when it comes to who is released first. The rich have a low probability of being given a strict sentencing, while the poor have a huge chance of receiving a strict sentence (Shakya, 2010). Ming believes that the harshness of crimes generally aren’t looked at now-a-days since the judges tend to sentence based on social class. I personally did not know that the severity of crime isn’t primarily looked at. Now I know why some celebrities are normally in jail for about a month or less for horrible crimes. The states are so quick to release non-violent offenders that they free criminals before they are even qualified for parole. Ming (2010) also states that crime is under-punished for white-collared criminals and the states choose to release people who belong in prison, rather than people who need help from addictions and mental illnesses. The states fail to provide inmates in need for rehabilitation and mental hospitals.