The US criminal justice system has significant issues and needs revising because over the past 40 years there has been a 500% increase in the incarceration rates all over the US. The people who make small mistakes become a slave to our criminal justice system because these people are thrown into a vicious cycle that they cannot get out of. People who commit these small municipal violations may not be able to afford to pay the fine landing them a spot in prison. Nothing is being done to help these convicts and after they are released so they often have to resort back to earlier crimes to sustain themselves and will typically end up back in prison. Once these people are out, it’s much more difficult to find a job, leading them back into this …show more content…
Prisoners walk out of the gates hoping for a “new life”, but the criminal justice system prevents that. These people have little to nothing, even less than they had before they ended up in prison. A man named Glenn Ford, who served 30 years appeared on Last Week Tonight with John Oliver to explain his story of being exonerated, “Glenn Ford was given a 20 dollar gift card the day he left Angola prison.” This 20 dollar gift card only lasted Glenn a single meal. Now think about this, Glenn was pardoned from his crimes and only received 20 dollars and was told this is a new start. This wasn’t a new start for him because that 's not even close to enough to be able to sustain himself. Prisoners should be given better benefits and especially the exonerated ones. The reason nearly 50% of people end up back in prison is because nothing is being done to help people who are newly released. They leave with only a small gift that won’t even last a day and are expected to be able to find jobs, but these jobs will rarely hire these ex-convicts. In fact, a lot of ex-convicts are banned from certain jobs making it even harder for them. Since these released prisoners are not able to find jobs, they have to resort back to previous crimes like dealing drugs to be able to sustain themselves in this “new life” as they become hungry and desperate. This is an endless cycle that you can’t break free from once the criminal justice system gets you in its
In the next paragraphs, Shea explains how not only do we spend $60 billion just to maintain the prison, but we bash these ex-prisoners, making it almost impossible for them to get a job once their out of prison. We should be trying to help them by doing more counseling, and more jobs. In order to keep
Over the last thirty years, the prison population in the United States has increased more than seven-fold to over two million people, including vastly disproportionate numbers of minorities and people with little education. For some racial and educational groups, incarceration has become a depressingly regular experience, and prison culture and influence pervade their communities. Almost 60 percent of black male high school drop-outs in their early thirties have spent time in prison. In Punishment and Inequality in America, sociologist Bruce Western explores the recent era of mass incarceration and the serious social and economic consequences it has wrought.
I have to agree with Alexander (2012) that being labeled a felon condemned individuals to second-class citizenship perpetuate the cycle of criminal behavior. I have seen firsthand individuals being released from prison as a felon back into society and how Jim Crow practices outcast them from society. For example, newly released individuals from prison are indeed released with a financial debt owed to the Criminal Justice System. Many of the individuals often have to pay restitution to victims, court costs/attorney fees, and fees owed to the Probation department. Individual parolees are required to pay money to their probation officers every visit and some parolees may be required to visit their probation officer every month.
But they fail to realize that the system we have now throws anyone in jail no matter if the person committed the crime or not. They also fail to realize that the current system sentencing isn't organized or fair because there are people out there innocent and people who don’t deserve that time that was given for petty crimes. The current system doesn’t seek for justice, they see everyone who gets arrested as a criminal and feels they should be thrown away for a very long time and that isn't fair. Sentencing reforming is highly recommended due to the outrageous modern sentencing practices we have today. People go to jail or maybe even prison for such petty crimes that doesn't deserve the many years that were given to them.
1. Ethical concern. Describe and give examples of the concern. How is it pertinent to the field of criminal justice?
A finding from a study done by the Bureau of Justice Statistics shows that 67.8 percent of ex-convicts were rearrested. Two-thirds of them spent their time in prison waiting for the release, only to go back into that dirty old cell again. Why don’t they try to get a real job, earn their own living and cherish the second chance we grant them. Let’s step down from the moral high ground for a second. Often released prisoners lack the skills and knowledge to keep up with the pace of society.
When people get out of prison they are afraid of going back. They don't have a reason to change. Most people don't have a way of even getting a job once there out as stated here, ”I work in a medium security prison in North Carolina that serves young men ages 18 to 25. There is one segment of our population that no program addresses. This is the group that will probably never be able to get a GED, and therefore they do not qualify for many of the programs designed to help with job
There’s a multitude of things that need to be repaired in our system, and prison is one of them. Prison reform is an important issue because we need to take care of everyone and with the way we treat criminals, we do not see them as equal. We need to assess illegal acts correctly instead of trying to put people in jail for the rest of their lives. We also need to work more on how we try to rehabilitate people. Instead of barring convicts off from the rest of us, we need to teach them how to integrate, so they can live better lives than they did
The person do his/her time under good behavior. That person comes out of prison determined to live a righteous and normal life. His/her first step is to find a job to get back on their feet. That person put in applications after applications for different jobs. Some of the jobs that require little or no experience, doesn’t even call that person back.
III. Prison system affects poverty ● America 's prison system is increasing the poverty in The United states. According to “Out of prison and out of work: Jobs out of reach for former inmates” an article by published by CNN, written by Tanzina Vega the united states has 5 percent of the world 's population but 25 percent of its prison population. A large part of this is due to unemployment. As can be seen in an article published by VICE named “Why Is Getting a Job After Prison Still Such a Nightmare for Ex-Cons?”.
The United States has a larger percent of its population incarcerated than any other country. America is responsible for a quarter of the world’s inmates, and its incarceration rate is growing exponentially. The expense generated by these overcrowded prisons cost the country a substantial amount of money every year. While people are incarcerated for several reasons, the country’s prisons are focused on punishment rather than reform, and the result is a misguided system that fails to rehabilitate criminals or discourage crime. This literature review will discuss the ineffectiveness of the United States’ criminal justice system and how mass incarceration of non-violent offenders, racial profiling, and a high rate of recidivism has become a problem.
People may say that prisoners must pay an unreasonable amount for cost to go get supplies in prisons or how that maybe prisoners can’t help support their families or pay doctor fees. In contradiction to this, those prisoners are already being cared for and they get all the necessities to live such as a good shelter, food and clean water. Duwane Engler, a former prison inmate who worked at a goat cheese farm within the prison says “When you're in prison, you have to work anyways. If you're in a maximum facility, you're going to do work... These guys actually get out, they have a purpose, and they make more than 60 cents a day.".
They have more opportunities because they have not been locked in a cell for a number of years. Instead in restorative justice the offender is required to do things like community service and communicating with the victim of their crime. Giving offenders more options after they have committed a crime can help them get back on their feet because they would have a better chance of getting a job. They would have a better chance of getting a job because they wouldn’t be out of a job as long as if they were in jail for years. Also hopefully by the offender not spending years in jail and doing things like community service they learn their lesson and will be less likely to commit another crime in the future compared to someone who spent years in jail.
Do ex-convicts deserve a second chance? Ernest Martinez believes that for some convicts their crime was “a matter of poor judgment rather than of faulty character.” Martinez wrote an essay targeted at Hispanic business owner to persuade them to hire or give a second chance to ex-convicts. Martinez’ fails to create a compelling essay because of his use of the word ‘people’ in the title, his use of diction, and his extreme disconnect between paragraphs.
According to Phelps (2013), as from 1998 to 2007 states that had the greatest increases in incarceration rates failed to observe a corresponding drop in crime rates. On the other hands, states such as New York, Texas, New Jersey and North and South Carolina that lowered their incarceration rates in favor of community corrections programs experienced a drop in crime rates (p.53). Incarceration has also failed in correcting prisoners. Most of the prisoners always go back to committing crimes once released from prison. It has led to a rise in the recidivism rates of prisoners.