Many drug offenders are often forced into the drug business because of economic reasons, resulting from the increased difficulty of finding jobs after prison, due to the felony that is attached to their name. Employers are often discouraged from hiring a person that has committed a felony, because of the uncertainty in their behavior. A study done by the Urban Institute, found that only 45% of all Americans that had been to prison, had a job within a year of being released. It was even lower for drug offenders, as only 25% of all drug offenders in the United States were able to find a job once released (McVay). It’s hard enough finding a well paying job because of the current state of the economy in the United States. Drug offenders often spend most of their life in prison, and once they are released, they have no knowledge or skills pertaining to the real world.
The Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) is a federally funded, executive agency consisting of 39,683 employees and housing 193,070 inmates via 122 different institutional locations currently maintaining a thirty-four percent rate of recidivism (Federal Bureau of Prisons, 2016, About tab). The Bureau is headquartered in Washington, D.C. and performs duties of care and custody, rehabilitation program and services, and provides services for the prevention of future crimes. The Bureau is also responsible for carrying out all legally mandated federal executions, with Terre Haute, Indiana being home for the lethal injection center. Facilities are broken down into different classifications based on security concerns, and house inmates accordingly by
America's prisons are overpopulated and the population is growing each year with increased drug activities. Low level drug offenders, comprised of 39 percent of the overall prison population. In the article " Department of Justice low-level drug offenders: a defense perspective" defines low-level drug offender as one who has been convicted drug trafficking offense but has no prior commitment, history of violence, known involvement of sophisticated criminal activity, significant "public risk factor," and pending detainer (Katz 28) . This group isn't hardened criminals and don't live a life of crime; rather they are motivated by profit. They are less likely to return to prison when compared to hardened criminals. The length of drug sentences
In 1972, former President Richard Nixon made his infamous statements regarding crime and drug abuse. In this speech, he declared a war on crime and drugs and intended to decrease the number of people using drugs and the amount of crimes that were committed. Since this declaration, incarceration rates in the U.S. have gone up by 500%, even though the amount of crime happening has gone down. One of the reasons why I feel our rates have risen, is because sometimes, we put people in jail when they don’t need to be there in the first place. 46.3% of prisoners are in jail
In this day and age, There are five times as many people in jail as there were in the 1970s. Almost 5 percent of the population of the United States will go to prison at in point of their life. Conservatives believe that imprisonment reduces crime in two ways: it removes criminals from the public so they can not commit more crimes, and it also discourages people who would commit a crime as they consider the consequences. Unfortunately, neither of these outcomes have come to be true. In fact, mass incarceration and “tough on crime” laws have been extremely ineffective that instead of reducing crime, it increases it. There are several different ways to effectively reduce crime other than these two strategies, such as reforming certain policies
Thesis: It is very important for the sake of Americans tax dollars that we change the way that prisons are run and increase the productivity of inmates so when they are released from jail they are ready to be a productive member in society and have the confidence to achieve new goals.
Over the past 40 years U.S. incarceration has grown at an extraordinary rate, with the United States’ prison population increasing from 320,000 inmates in 1980 to nearly 2.3 million inmates in 2013. The growth in prison population is in part due to society’s shift toward tough on crime policies including determinate sentencing, truth-in-sentencing laws, and mandatory minimums. These tough on crime policies resulted in more individuals committing less serious crimes being sentenced to serve time and longer prison sentences.
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.
One important aspect of the U.S Prison system is the war on drugs and how they go to jail for an unreasonable amount of time for having a small amount of drugs on them and when they have to go to prison it affects the prisoner's family. In “criminal justice fact sheet (NAACP), the author states that in 2009 nearly 1.7 million people were arrested in the U.S non-violent drug charges- more than half of these arrests were for marijuana possession alone. Less than 20% was for the sale or manufacture of a drug. This is critical to understand because police officers spend so much time trying to arrest people with drugs because it's easy for them. The more arrest the more they get paid. They could be
2: However, government are trying to reduce, but it is helpless and a lot of reasons behind this poverty, poor, education, and unemployment.
Does it make sense to lock up 2.4 million people on any given day, giving the U.S the highest incarceration rate in the world. More people are going to jail, this implies that people are taken to prison everyday for many facilities and many go for no reason. People go to jail and get treated the worst way as possible. This is a reason why the prison system needs to be changed. Inmates need to be treated better. The government treats prisoners as if they are nothing in this world. The U.S prison system needs to be reformed by building new and better prisons and making it more humane and fair.
This section’s goal is to show the effectiveness and efficiency of 4 studies on the previously outlined programs. To begin, Federal funds paid for a study named The Multi-Site Adult Drug Court Evaluation (MADCE), the study measures the effectiveness of adult drug courts. Since drug courts aim at keeping addicts away from drugs and out of jail, the purpose of the study was to “evaluate the effects of drug courts on substance use, crime, and other practices,” and to note when outcomes proved positive (Rossman, Rempel, Roman, Zweig, Lindquist, Green, Downey, Yahner, Bhati, Farole, Jr., 2011, p. 1). Authors of the report include Shelli B. Rossman, Michael Rempel, John K. Roman, Janine M. Zweig, Christine H.
The legalization of drugs has been at the center of interminable debate. Drugs have widely been perceived as a dominant threat to the moral fabric of society. Drug use has been attributed as the source responsible for a myriad of key issues. For instance, it is believed that drugs have exacerbated the already weak status of mental health in the United States in which some individuals suffering from mental illness administer illicit substances such as heroin or cocaine in an attempt to self-medicate. Moreover, drugs are blamed for turning auspicious members of the community into worthless degenerates. Thus, vast efforts have been made to regulate the alleged drug problem through various avenues. For example, programs have been created to steer
Example? California, U.S.A. The state is so overpopulated and waste their water so much that the bodies of water that the state gets their water from, are almost gone if not completely gone already. Areas in California are now deserts where there used to be green grass. Why? We took advantage of it, and now? It’s coming back to bite us in the butt. It’s what someone would call Karma, or a life lesson that you’re parents teach you after you did something you weren’t supposed to. Except this lesson, you don’t just get grounded or your butt spanked, no. This lesson, the way you learn is when you run out of water to drink. When you run out of water to take a shower with. When you run out of water to clean your dirty dishes with, when you just run
A big question in today’s society, is should parents be able to choose who their kid dates, or should it be that child 's decision. Many people have argued yes, it should be the parents job to choose the right girl/guy for their child. But is that correctly accurate? Yes many parents should warn their kids on the person they are dating, but choosing them without consent from their child is a different thing. I feel like a parent should not tell their child who to date. Maybe who not too. Parents have the right to share their opinion especially when that relationship they are seeing is bad for their child. I feel like you shouldn’t date someone your family already disapproves of, because even if you hope that eventually they will approve of him/her they probably won’t you will just have lingering parents disapproval. Although it is that childs achievement to learn from the mistakes they have had.