The United States Needs Criminal Justice Reform

The articles of Cullen and Jonson had a main focus of why punish criminals and how much should they be paid for the punishment. The article explains, 1 in every 100 American adults is behind bar and 1 in 31 is under someone form of correctional control. In the United States there are more than 1.6 million offenders imprisoned in state and federal institutions. Also the incarcerated population surpasses 2.4 million and there more than 828,000 people on parole, so inference there are 7.4 million Americans under the supervision of the correctional system. Throughout class, we have learned that the goals of the criminal punishment system revolve around 5 goals to maintain order. The goals are Deterrence, Retribution or just deserts,

A report called “The Growth of Incarceration in the United States” published by the National Research Council on 2014, concluded that all the money we’re putting into the criminal justice system have not been worth the benefit in crime

Criminal justice is one of the most important systems which affect everyone’s life in the government of America. Within the system, although the debate over causes and solutions to crime will probably never end, the government has evolved and developed a criminal justice system for dealing with crimes. By deterring and mitigating crime, upholding social control, or sanctioning those who violate laws with criminal penalties and rehabilitation efforts, the criminal justice system has a fundamental role in maintaining the national security. It also raises vital questions for each of American about fairness, security, and rights in a free society. Throughout a collection of articles in Criminal Justice, edited by Noël Merino for the Opposing

As the years have passed we have seen the failure of the get tough on crime policies. Through research studies and statistics gathered by researchers, they have come to the conclusion that imprisoning criminals alone is not the solution to reform inmates an reduce recidivism rates while also. Through new policy reforms that help provide inmates with education and drug rehabilitation, and programs the likes of transcendental meditation, can we as a nation help reform these criminals into productive members of society, and stop “the revolving door” criminal justice system we have.

“The United States has about 5% of the world’s population yet it accounts for about 25% of the world’s prisoners” (Deady 2014). From the “tough on crime” mentality of the last few decades, our prison system has bloated and become focused on punishment

Do you know someone who has committed a crime? My friend John from high school was an average B student. He always came to class and always did his work. When it came to exam week he didn’t show up. I was worried, so I called his mom and asked what happened. She told me that John was in jail for marijuana possession. He was only in jail for a week before his mom could bail him out. While in jail, he missed his final exams and failed all his classes forcing him to take summer school to graduate. Today, the United States has twenty-five percent of the world prisoners. One in every thirty-one adults of the population is under some form of correctional control. The United States has more people in prison than anywhere else in the world. What is really sad about the United States is having prisons for profit instead of healing for the accused and preventing them from committing another crime. We need a new criminal justice system that focuses more on how we convict people, provide appropriate sentencing, and rehabilitate through healing instead of punishment.

Most war on drugs is built on racial injustice. In spite of roughly equal rates of drug use and sales, African-American men have been arrested at least 5-13 times the rate of white men on drug charges in the U.S. With rates up to at least 50-60 times in some states. African Americans and Latinos together make up about 29-35 percent of the total U.S. population, but more than 75 percent of drug law violators in state and federal prisons.

It is important to note that there is no right way to make the criminal justice system perfectly democratic. The realization of what changes need to be made is the central key to reform. We must strive for a democratic criminal justice system that is reliable, trustworthy, equal, respectful, and

As we know the United States is the leading country for incarceration rates on the international scale. In the United States Americans believe justice is served through retribution and “harsh” prison sentencing. In addition with a fueled belief that incapacitation and punitive sanctions can provide public safety. Which unfortunately mass incarceration did not provide better results or safer returns. In fact, based off recidivism rates can show a country's performance in regards to prison system performances. In United States our recidivism rate is still hovering over a 40 percentile for the last 20 years.

Our criminal justice system benefit’s our country by allowing residents to know that crime is taken seriously. Prisons work to discourage people from committing crimes, or at least to not get caught. It is accurate to seek punishment to prevent people from doing bad things. It is necessary that everyone can feel safe. Humans need consequences for their actions. In the interest of all people, this has been the original intention of our justice system. Although, as a result of this approach, it is understood that in the United States of America, we have the highest percentage of incarceration in the world. The fact is, there is no proof that this is helping society by ending or preventing crime. The protection society needs is dependent upon rehabilitation.

The purpose of the American correctional system is to keep criminals of the streets who may cause harm to the public, to protect the citizens of the United States and to punish criminals who are found guilty of committing crimes. The United States correctional system is very ineffective. The cost of incarcerating criminals is astronomical; the reason these criminals are in jail is because they need to be punished, and most of the prisoner’s lives are corrupt before and after prison.

Crime has been an ever-present figure in America even before America officially became a country. Where there is crime, there must be a way to suppress it. That is where prisons come into play. When a person commits a crime, he or she might stay in a prison while awaiting trial and might also stay in a prison as a punishment if that trial does not end in his or her favor. According to The Sentencing Project, as of 2015, the United States’ rate of incarceration was the highest in the world, standing at 698 people per 100,000 people. That means that nearly 2.3 million people in 2015 were behind bars. Because of this, the United States penal system needs to be extremely substantial, growing and changing to compensate for America’s growing and changing society. The American penal system has changed vastly over time, developing laws, practices, and major reforms to make it more efficient and effective; however, some question whether it is actually working.

Within the United States Criminal Justice System, it is not only goal to simply punish those who break the law, but to also reduce the level of criminal activity. In order to fulfill this important aspect of the Criminal Justice System, offenders must be rehabilitated and motivated to refrain from engaging in further criminal activity so that they do not return to prison. Since the early 1990’s, our country’s crime rate has been declining. Studies such as the Pew Safety Performance Project point out that this is an important goal for correctional systems to keep in mind, but it is not the only one. Pew Safety believes that ensuring the taxpayer dollars are spent effectively is also an important aspect of the correctional system.

When asked about criminals, we usually tend to think that putting them into prison is the most effective way for deter crime. However, in recent years, many released criminals commit crimes again. In my opinion, one major reason of this disappointed phenomenon happened is about the methods we used to reform crimes are not appropriate.

Laws are put in place to protect the common good and is the purpose of government . However, the United States Justice system does an exceptionally poor job of this considering it spends an estimated $80 billion, but isn’t high on the list of the world’s safest countries based on the global peace index. Also, imprisoning people often has lasting negative effects on families of both the victim and offender and is punitive rather than restorative. Additionally, the United States has one of the highest recidivism rates in the world because it lacks to offer offenders a chance to redeem themselves and make a positive return to society . The U.S. should consider some reform to reduce the injustices which seems to be sign of problem of economic inequality,