Why Prisons Should Be Released Early From Prison

Like Angela Davis, I believe that the prison system needs to be abolished. The prison system which is a significant part of punishment is incompetent and deeply flawed in the United States. Prison system reform needs immediate attention while abolition permanently will require time. Nietzsche’s theory of punishment explains how punishment come about in society and Davis’s critique of the prison system helps back my argument that the prison system needs to be abolished.

It seems to me that we need to be better at filtering the system instead if incarcerating everyone no matter the offense we should start seeking other alternatives. We should incarcerate those who are an endangerment to themselves and society. For the others we should try to get them treatment not just throw them in jail because that won’t end the cycle. When people are released they aren’t prepared for society. They don’t have anything just the clothes on the back and no money. The only way most released inmates know how to get money is to steal it. It’s very difficult for a person with a felon to get a stable job. Another flaw with releasing inmates is that when they released there are many regulations and rules they have to abide by that are very difficult. You have to pay a certain amount each month. You have to report, you have to employee, and you may have to stay in one place. These technicalities are what keep sending people back. These people when they get pout have nothing. How can you expect them to pay

Another issue the structure has faced is that even though it has been adopted and set into place, the early release portion of the system is seldom used (Durling, 2006). In the state of Colorado, since 1998 793 offenders have been sentenced under the program. Of those offenders, 182 were eligible for the early release program and only 2 have been granted it (Durling, 2006). Not only is this bad for the taxpayers who have to continue paying for the imprisonment and medical care of the offender, but it is also bad for the morale of the offender.

This promotes good behavior in prison and keeps the prison population lower. However, many released prisoners just commit another crime and are returned to jail. In 1992, one in three state prison admissions was a probation or parole violator.(Byrne 50) Also, a special report from the United States Bureau of Justice Statistics stated:

Can the criminal justice system fix these criminals or can they fix their internal problems of the early releasing of inmates? With the internal problems of the CJ system, it makes some people wonder if they have the safety of the community and society as a whole in mind when making the decision to release. Are inmates more determined or are they deterred from criminal activities once they are released from prison.

The United States is home to five percent of the world population, but 25 percent of the world’s prisoner. There must be a change to the current prison system which is doing more harm than good in American society and must be reformed. Reasons for this claim are that American prisons are too overcrowded with inmates, which creates a dangerous and unhuman environment. The cost to run a prison has gotten too expensive for tax payer pockets, and lastly the prison system is more as a punishment instead of rehabilitation with about sixteen percent of inmates most serious offence being drug charges. Prisons fall short of reforming criminals and the government is obligated to completely reform the prison systems in the United States.

The main idea of a prison is to help rehabilitate offenders and to stop them from relapsing back into a world of crime, but instead prisoners are constantly returning time and time again. We must find a way to incarcerate those who need to be behind bars, and deal with other criminals in a different manner. I believe we should reduce the use of prisons, and rethink our punishment for certain crimes.

The early release of inmates due to lack of funds results in more criminals out on the street, eventually this will be a problem for you, if not one you have already encountered. If more criminals are on the street before they are rehabilitated will cause an increase in crimes.

To suggest that changing prison sentences or building more jails to accommodate more prisoners would be the best course of action is, at best, simply putting a band-aid on an exponentially increasing problem. In our reading, Mr. Gopnik explains that African-Americans are incarcerated at a rate of seven times the rate of white Americans (575). However, the problem is not a matter of one race being inherently prone to crime. As Mrs. Edelman explains, "these factors include ... underperforming schools, broken child welfare and juvenile justice systems, and a toxic youth culture that praises pimps and glorifies violence" (588). Essentially, the way to fix this problem is not to dump more money into an already enormous prison system. By expanding our capacity to "treat" or cage more prisoners, we will only be able to keep up until population growth outpaces us.

Prisons have been a way for us to remove persons of danger away from the rest of society, and it is the sole purpose. The prisoners are placed into a facility and they serve their time doing just it, nothing else. However, over time we began to initiate a new concept for prisons. Prisons can be used as a place to rehabilitate people and change the path which they have been following. We have given prisoners the ability to get an education, get work experience, get therapy, and get drug rehabilitation. There is a policy which has been debated upon however in this idea of reformation, and it is the parole policy for inmates. Even though parole has been around for a long time, and there is proof it helps lower recidivism rates, there are still people fighting against the re-entry program. While the program may have a few faults they are one which are on a local level, not with the program itself and it should be allowed to continue.

The article I chose was Inmates launch massive nationwide strike to protest 'modern slavery' in US prison system by Feliks Garcia from The Independent. The main conclusion of the article was that 45 years after the Attica prison riot, many of the reforms demanded still exist today, and by inmates in about 40 prisons bonding together they wish to make a change. Within the article, the arguments presented as to why inmates are taking such measures is that besides the evident reason to end injustice, there now seems to be a larger possibility for reform. I choose this article because even if I may not have any direct connection to the U.S. prison system, I wanted to know more on an issue that I had not known previously about.

Minimal sentence of 30 year with out parole, after 15 years of you shall be beaten with a cat of nine tails 30 lashes to match your sentence. We turn back the hand of time and the jail will only server you bread and water and you will get your rations every Sunday that should last you the week. Two months before you are set to be release from jail we remove your private. (because you used it for evil you shall not have it going forward.) Thus cutting down on you being a repeat offender.

Another idea is to reduce prison overcrowding as well as save taxpayer money is to privatize some of the state’s prisons. This is where a private prison operator houses as many of the state's inmates that are agreed upon in the contract. This is generally how much the state can afford to have the private prison operator house. This helps with the problem of prison overcrowding because private companies can expand capacity faster and add space is part of the answer to overcrowding. Privatizing some of the state’s prisons also helps to save the taxpayer’s money because private prisons have lower costs if prison-guard unions are kept at bay. With that, they will not need the government’s help for funding. As a result, implementing this idea can

The decision to release an inmate early has been a much debated topic for quite some time. Lately, Washington, State’s criminal-justice system, or lack of it has received much criticism from the public because of the tragic death of four Lakewood police officers who lost their lives when an inmate was let out of jail early. Today the question remains whether inmates should be released early or not. Some people believe courts are demonstrating a lack of judicial restraint when rendering a decision to free a violent criminal early from custody. On the other hand, others believe the overcrowding in prisons has put a tremendous financial strain on state budgets. Everyone is at liberty to an opinion, but the truth is there are detrimental

For most that have spent their lives in prison, the outside world is a place that is being missed out on. When freedom is received to be part of the outside world again, living a normal life is valued, making it easy to fit into. There are many people who only experience prison for a short period of time and don’t get to fully learn that the outside world is a place not to be scared of, and learning from mistakes can change lives forever. People who don't learn from mistakes usually go back into the real world with the same or even worse behaviours than when they first entered, this is why prisons need to be better equipped to rehabilitate prisoners in a shorter time frame.