The Importance Of Prisons In The Prison System

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   Outdated clichés consisting of men eating stale bread and drinking dirty water are only a small fraction of the number of horrible, yet “just” occurrences which are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 criminal justice system focuses more on criminalization and incarceration than it does on rehabilitation. The United States of America wins the award for the highest incarceration rate in the world with over 2.3 million people in correctional facilities. America itself contains only about five percent of the world population, but accounts for twenty-five percent of the world’s prisoners (American Civil Liberties Union). With a longstanding history of mass incarceration and

The United States currently has the highest number of prisoners in the world. According to Glaze and Herrmann (2013), approximately 6.9 million adults are under some form of correctional supervision in the United States. Crime in the United States is relatively equal to that of any other industrialized nation, so why does the United States house so many inmates irrespective of the fact that the nation cannot successfully manage a budget for the institution as well as manage the inmates? An inmate, Victor Hassine, provides insight as to what prisoners physically and mentally experience during incarceration as well as his ideas on the effects of prisons on inmates in his book, Life without Parole.

"Even though the United States makes up just 5% of the world’s population, it houses 25% of the world’s prison population” (Walmsley, 2009). The United States prides itself in being a worldwide leader in just about every category; however, being the world leader in incarceration rights might not be something the United States would be proud about. Incarceration rates in the United States have grown at alarming rates in the past forty years specifically and it has resulted in major overcrowding issues in nearly every prison and jail within the country. Although it is evident that incarceration is a major problem within our country the issues with incarceration do not end at just overcrowding. It is clear and evident through statistical data and research that incarceration does not affect everyone the same.

The United States prison system is having a terrible time. In 2000 the US inmate population reached a record of two million. which means that 1 person in 140 in the United States was imprisoned. Over the last quarter of the 20th century, the number of inmates tripled, and the United States locked up mor people per capita than almost any other country, almost tying up with Russia for this dubious distinction. Incarceration rates are six times those of Briton and 17 time those of Japan. The rising numbers have made prisons a growth industry, California builds a new prison every year to keep up with the demand. The burden of imprisonment falls disproportionately on racial minorities. In California for example, a young black man is 5 times as likely

The United States of America has the largest prison population in the world. The United States incarcerates six hundred ninety-three people per one hundred thousand people and boasts an incarceration rate that is almost five times higher than most other countries (Wagner & Walsh, 2016). The incarceration rate within the U.S. is significantly higher than the incarceration rates of other countries due to the prevalence of institutional racism within the American criminal justice system. While the criminal justice system unjustly targets minority individuals, African Americans and Hispanics are especially targeted (Brennan & Spohn, 2009). African Americans and Hispanics account for a minority of the U.S. population but make up the majority of the U.S. prison population. Despite comprising only 13.6% of the U.S. population (Rastogi, Johnson, Hoeffel, and Drewery, 2011), African Americans account for 37.8% of all prisoners in the U.S. (Inmate Race, 2017). Hispanics are also targeted by the criminal justice system at abnormally high rates. Hispanics make up

“In a 2006 Special Report, the Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) estimated that 705,600 mentally ill adults were incarcerated in state prisons, 78,800 in federal prisons and 479,900 in local jails. Growing numbers of mentally ill offenders have strained correctional systems” (NIC, n.d.). Often times it is wondered why mentally ill offenders are imprisonment time are lengthier than other offenders? Could it be that it may be hard to comprehend and abide by prison and jail rules, or are there not enough facilities to aide their need? Moreover, pretrial offenders with severe mental illness encounter longer imprisonment time than other prisoners in many states, and they would require a mental evaluation assessment to stand trial. “The prevalence of mental illness among offender populations indicates a substantial need for mental health treatment. Today, the largest US jails and prisons hold more people with mental illnesses and co-occurring substance use disorders than many inpatient psychiatric facilities” (Kim, Becker-Cohen & Serakos, 2015).

Prison’s were established a long time ago to try to put an end to the rapidly increasing crime rate, however over time we are seeing the effectiveness of the most prisons decreasing. As a result of this epidemic, prisons have a higher recidivism rate and over 40 percents are currently operating over maximum capacity (Holder.) Through different types of research, we are finding out that our prison systems are no longer effective and there is a serious need for improvement. The United States has only 5 percent of the world’s population, yet we incarcerate almost ¼ of the worlds prisoners (Holder.)

While the states fall short to fulfill their budgetary needs for safety, infrastructure, and education short comes, the prison population has increased each year and its annual budgets. However, in the television show on CNN discussing the failure of our prison system, “In 2011, California spent $9.6 billion on prisons, versus $5.7 billion on higher education.” (Zakaria , 2012)

The United States prison system perpetuates racial and class prejudice and oppresses offenders through extended sentencing and extending the punishment of felons after their sentencing is done. The purpose of this oppression has become the profit motive of those who invest in prisons in a similar way to how they invest in businesses. To better the American people, a prison system that educates and rehabilitates prisoners is necessary.

In today’s mainstream prisons there has been a dramatic increase in the number of U.S. citizens who are being incarcerated every day. In the article State Incarcerations: Global Context, Chang (2013) reports “The U.S. incarcerates 716 people for every 100,000 residents…our rate of incarceration is more than five times higher than most of the countries in the world”. The 716 individuals who were incarcerated in U.S. prisons and jails, about half this number among the population of those who are

The growth of incarceration in the United States Prison grew over the last four decades. The trend is historically unprecedented and is unique to the world. The majority of those incarcerated come from disadvantaged populations and comprises of main minorities below the age of forty. The communities have the number of people engaging in crime, drug abuse, alcohol addiction, physical and mental illness and lack of employment. The African Americans and Hispanics form the largest prison population compared to the non-Hispanic whites. The high incarceration has the huge impact on the American society since its inception in the 1960s and 1970s. The changed political environment led to policy changes. All levels of the government altered

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

The United States prison system incarcerates more people per capita than nearly all European countries, and roughly two-thirds of those inmates that are released will be arrested again within three years (Ward et al, 2015). Some facilities have relatively successful programs that cut down on the recidivism numbers. However, the majority of prisons are focused on punishment and make no efforts at rehabilitation. Something in the American justice systems needs to change so that the cycle can be broken. To accomplish this, we can look at the justice system of other countries and try to determine whether such systems would work in the United States.

With the population of the United States prisons growing every day we need to evaluate if they are doing any good. Personally, I believe that we need to keep our prison system, but we need to take steps in reforming them rather than abolish them altogether. The United States has the highest number of incarcerated people than any other country in the world. We must sit down and look at other countries and see what they are doing different than the United States. In this paper, we will first look at what the prison system in America is like and what we can do to improve upon our prison system. Then, we will also look at the Finland prison systems and see if we can learn anything from them, since they have one of the lowest incarceration and crime rate in the world. We will then look at reforming our prison system or abolishing it. Finally, we will investigate other punishment alternatives other than the prison system that we could use.