The reason prisoners are placed in solitary confinement is because they are considered to be too dangerous to be in general population because they either threatened another inmate or an officer. They can also be in solitary for their own protection if they are mentally unstable or to keep them from trouble, or they can also be placed as punishment for disruptive behavior.
A major part of the evolution within the prison system is prisoner rights. Even though citizens loose many of their rights once committing a felony, there are still rights afforded to those individuals incarcerated. Prisoner rights are important to maintaining balance within the prison system. They give the prisoners a voice, which prevents prison officials from abusing their power. Prisoner rights are necessary to maintaining a particular level of care for inmates, for it forces the correctional staff to be more hands on in their approach. This way they may also receive the treatment necessary for proper rehabilitation, as well as the tools
In any penal system, controlling the misbehavior of prisoners is challenging and costly. Early release can save states a great amount of money. Prisoners leave the prison system through parole or by completing their sentences. In my opinion I think prison inmates should be released early from prison because of good behavior.
Despite the fact that my parents have worked in the criminal justice system for many years, I have never given much thought to the treatment of prisoners. As we learned from the readings, the current state of the United States criminal justice system is imperfect to the point of cruelty to those involved in it. This is truer for individuals with a mental illness. Due to a lack of psychiatric facilities throughout Alabama and overcrowding of those that do exist, many criminal offenders with mental illnesses are sent to prisons instead. State prisons are currently overcrowded, leading to substandard conditions such in almost every aspect.
Unfit conditions in these crowded systems are common. Prison facilities are far behind and the crowded conditions are a potential life threatening danger to inmates and workers. (Miles). Most inmates have to share cells with often two or even three other people that were originally meant for one or two convicts. (Miles). Government spending on building more prisons to meet the demand is extremely high, taking away from other things and putting the economy in greater debt. “The United States needs to shift spending from law enforcement and penalization to education treatment, and prevention” (“The United”). In the past 20 years, the amount of money states are spending on correctional systems has increased greatly at about 4 times more. “Putting people in prison is remarkably expensive, and long sentences mean big bills that last and last. In 2008 alone, states spent $47 billion on corrections. That’s money that could be spent on a number of other vital community needs, including: Education, Infrastructure, Libraries or museums, Clean water, Disaster preparedness, Antiterrorism” (DualDiagnosis.org). Many violent offenders also get released because there's no space. During 2014 and the three years prior in California, more than 1,400 inmates that had life sentences were released under gov. Brown. “This dramatic shift in releases under Brown comes as the state grapples with court orders to ease a decades-long prison crowding crisis that has seen triple bunking, prison gyms
The purpose of incarceration is not a simple question to answer. A prison is designed to keep a segment of the population segregated from another segment of the population. Having a understanding of why the segregation s necessary helps the manager or administrator apply or request for funding. During budget crisis or a recession, the manager has to be able to identify and explain the purpose of incarceration so that government monies will be allocated to the correct areas of corrections (Guillory, 2010). In the United States, over the last three decades, there has been an increase in the incarceration rates (Lynch, 1999). There are more than two million adults incarcerated. The US prison population, in the
One way that prisoners can be dealt with more humanely is by eliminating the need to use solitary confinement for minor rule infractions and prohibiting that inmates with mental illness be subjected to solitary confinement. According to “Solitary Confinement: Common Misconceptions and Emerging Safe Alternatives,” many believe the misconception that solitary confinement is used only for the most violent of inmates, when in reality disciplinary segregation is commonly used for minor rule violations. We should not be punishing inmates with solitary confinement for minor infractions instead we should enforce less severe consequences, such as providing correctional officers with sanction grids that guide them to choose the appropriate punishment for certain behaviors (“Solitary Confinement: Common Misconceptions and Emerging Safe Alternatives”). Moreover, inmates with a known mental illness should not be placed in solitary confinement because, in concordance with “Mental Health Alternatives to Solitary Confinement,” it causes severe mental suffering and isolating them to a small cell where they experience sensory deprivation constitutes torture. Instead of sending
According to the prisons inspectorate, the ‘health’ of a prison should be measured according to safety, respect, purposeful activity and resettlement (HMCIP, 2013). Choose one of these factors, and using academic research to support your argument, discuss to what extent this represents a critical element of imprisonment in contemporary society.
The United States has the highest incarceration rate in the world with over 2.4 million people in jail (American Friends Service Committee). A census taken in 2005 discovered that out of those 2.4 million prisoners behind bars, 81,622 of them were being held in solitary confinement (Casella and Ridgeway). In that same 2005 census, it was gathered that 44 states use solitary confinement in their prisons (Casella and Ridgeway). Eleven years later one can only image how these numbers have changed, and most likely grown. As defined by Solitary Watch, “Solitary confinement is the practice of isolating people in closed cells for 22-24 hours a day, virtually free of human contact, for periods of time ranging from days to decades.” Solitary confinement
While there are many arguments from supporters for why long term confinement is expectable punishment for the inmates in prison, most popular reason is that it allows prisoner to reflect back on their crime and their victim, which in turn is supposed to aid in the rehabilitation process. But multiple studies and long term data collected across the country have proven that it’s simply not true. Based on information collected by the state of Connecticut (Tsui. 2), inmates who spend time in solitary confinement during their prison sentence were 92% more likely to be rearrested within three years compared to 66% of inmate who were not subjected to such treatment, while information from Texas shows that inmates who were housed in isolation units
In prisons today, rehabilitation, deterrence, incapacitation, and retribution are all elements that provide a justice to society. Prisons effectively do their part in seeing that one if not more of these elements are met and successfully done. If it were not for these elements, than what would a prison be good for? It is highly debated upon whether or not these elements are done properly. It is a fact that these are and a fact that throughout the remainder of time these will be a successful part of prison life.
On Sunday, October 4, 2015 at approximately 11:09 am I, Officer McMillon # 135 of the MISD Police Department while on call was contacted by MISD Police Dispatch in regards to a power outage at Linda Jobe MS and possibly criminal mischief involving an electrical generator located on site.
Solitary confinement has been used for decades by prisons across the United States. “Although the U.S. only holds 5% of the world’s population, it holds approximately 25% of the world’s prisoners” (Devereaux, 2012, pg. 7). According to our text, “an estimate of at least 80,000 inmates in 38 states and federal prisons are held in solitary confinement. These inmates are being held for various reasons, including breaking rules, posing a security risk, or being a gang member” (Bohm & Haley, 2014, p. 388).
Remember the feeling you had when you were young when you lost sight of your mom in a sea of people in the grocery store? Now imagine the feeling you would have if you were locked in a room by yourself for days or quite possibly years at a time with no communication to the outside world. No access to family members or friends. Life continually moving on without you. That’s exactly how thousands of U.S. inmates are feeling right now. Solitary confinement is a real issue in which taxpayers contribute to a large number of suicides as well as serious psychological effects for inmates.
America; the land of the free and the home of the brave. Free, that is, until you break one of America’s many laws and are convicted and sentenced to incarceration in the prison system. Depending on the severity of the crime, one might be sentenced to either a minimum, medium, or maximum security prison.