The Overcrowding Of Prisons

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).

Research Question No. 1 - Did Three Strikes You're Out contribute to the problem of mass incarceration and overcrowded jails and prisons?

After exploring options of which states had the most overcrowding in prisons, the best option to go with was California because states like Alabama and Massachusetts did not have current statistics. If anything, their statistics were from 2016 or 2013, making data harder to collect. Therefore, according to the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation website, the most recent report they have of the total population is as of midnight February 8, 2017. The total population is 180,885, with four of them being civil addict. Total in-custody is of 129,284 inmates, parole is 44,721, non-CDC jurisdiction is 1,022 and lastly other population #6 inmates with 5,854 (“Weekly Report of Population”, 2017). Once again looking at a weekly

Prison overcrowding is a major problem in our criminal justice system and it continues to be a hotly debated topic as to how we should address the problem. One of the main reasons our prison systems have a problem with overcrowding is drugs. More specifically, the "war on drugs" started by President Reagan in 1982 brought a dramatic increase to the number of people put behind bars for drug offences. Mandatory minimum sentencing and truth in sentencing are two policies which have sent drug offenders to prison and kept them there for longer periods of time. The continuing crusade against drugs has apprehended hundreds of thousands of suspects who spend millions on drugs but the cost to incarcerate these non-violent offenders exceeds billions of dollars and much of that money is coming from the taxpayers ' pockets. One way to address this problem is to reverse the current trend of putting first time, non-violent drug offenders in prison and instead sentence these offenders to boot camp and counselling combined with family support.

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,

With this being an important year for the 2016 Presidential Candidate elections, positions on certain topics can be the deciding vote for many Americans. Hot topics such as gay rights, immigration reform, and free education are dominating the debates and conversations of these politicians. However, there is one societal issue that is not being addressed enough; the current overpopulation of U.S prisons. Although this may seem like a topic that does not impact the country at large, with prisons overcrowded by almost 40 percent (Hunt, 2011), sentencing reform makes fiscal and humanitarian sense.

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,

Due to the “war on drugs”, prison overcrowding is becoming more and more of an issue, putting a strain on not just the law enforcement but our society as well. America has been implementing a “war on drugs” policy since the early nineteen – seventies. Since the creating of the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) in 1973 under Richard Nixon, then the Office of National Drug Control Policy under Ronald Reagan in 1988, the United States has found themselves in an endless war and in constant debt huge amounts of money.

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

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

Over the past few years, there has been a large cutback in the rehabilitation programs in prisons. Many say it is useless and that the inmates deserve to be in there. The message has been pretty clear that they do not care if an inmate changes or not (Evans D. Hopkins). However, inmates lives do matter, and without someone teaching them the steps to change and giving them a proper education, there will definitely be no hope for them in the end. Due to the federal criminality inside the prison systems, it is vital that there are strong rehabilitation programs to give inmates a fair chance to return to society as changed men and women.

Prisons are overloaded with inmates; there are alternative resources being used to reduce the number of inmates in prison/jail. The alternative resources are community corrections. Community corrections are often a privatized agency that is similar and different from private prisons. Privatized community corrections can give a positive outcome in the criminal justice system, but can also have a negative impact on clients. Why are clients required to pay fees instead of the courts, or taxpayers? There are laws written in the state of Colorado regarding Community Corrections. Overall, community corrections have advantages as well as disadvantages.

Over the past years, the prison population has increased dramatically. Can overcrowding in prison contribute to inmates not receiving the right treatment? Are inmates receiving the proper care while behind bars? Does locking away individuals who struggle with health and medical needs cause people to become even more unhealthy while they are incarcerated then released from prison. Unfortunately, it is clear that there are many health/ medical issues that affects inmates while they are incarcerated.

Evidence shows that overcrowded prison conditions increase crime in these confines, such as inmates attacking guards. Instances like this happen in these unprincipled institutions daily across the United States, making overcrowded prisons dangerous to

The purpose of this paper is to look at the prevalence of overcrowding in the United States prison system, what led to its current conditions, and how it effects the its fundamental function. The explanation of growth is suggested by Davey 1998 and Anderson 2000. Jacobson, 2005 outlines some of the affairs leading to the change in prison functions. The dire state of conditions in prison facilities is exemplified by McConville, 1987. Furthermore McConville also offers some possible resolutions to the current problems.