Misdemeanor Case Study

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 bureau is constantly trying to improve its treatment for inmates, lowering the number of new inmates, while deceasing the number of inmates who return to prison life. Programs both inside and outside of the federal prison system are conducted in an attempt to understand what is the driving force behind crime. As mentioned previously, one of the largest criminal offenses for inmate incarceration is illegal drug activity, either its manufacture, possession, purchase, sale, or use. Approximately fifty-one percent of inmates are incarcerated due to illegal drug activity. Studies are even conducted to determine how race and ethnicity play a social factor into incarceration due to illegal drug activity. Determining this, the Federal Bureau of Prisons has also developed a comprehensive drug abuse treatment strategy for those incarcerated inmates who were affected by illegal drug activities. Drug education programs, and comprehensive drug abuse counseling is offered to nearly all incarcerated inmates. While the number directly related illegal drug activity to inmate incarceration may be approximately fifty-one percent, some form of illegal drug activity may eventually affect nearly all

Drug courts, initially propelled in Florida in 1989, are an arrangement of escalated treatment and supervision. The thought is to treat the instances of peaceful substance-mishandling guilty parties uniquely in contrast to other criminal cases in light of the fact that the dependence is at the base of the criminal action. Accentuation is on recovery instead of discipline.

The topic of this paper is the South Carolina Department of Corrections. This agency was selected due to the authors’ current major of Criminal Justice. While attending classes at Tri-County Technical College I have covered many aspect of the criminal justice system as a whole along with the area of corrections. Although I am familiar with the topic, this will be in depth to the South Carolina Department of Corrections and how this agency interacts within the state government. The goal will be to apply an insight to corrections as a whole, how these state departments functions, and provide research on the details for this agency.

They are less likely to return if low level drug offenders receive treatment during and after prison. Olson and Lurigion state ,"Drug addiction is a chronic relapse brain disease with biological, psychological, social and behavioral concomitants"(600). If a drug criminal is treated for his addiction, he/she will be less likely to commit crimes. The treatment has to be comprehensive and provide a wide range of treatment (Olsen and Lurigion (601) Many professions believe treatment is more effective than incarceration for several months. They are also using drug courts to have more effective punishments. The government, administrators, families and individual drug criminals all have different ways to reduce crime with treatment centers and incarceration. Some treat the addiction, or have programs to make low level drug criminals

Jenkins, Jennifer Bishop. “On Punishment and Teen Killers.” Juvenile Justice Information Exchange. 2 Aug. 2011. Web. 11 June 2012

The current system that incarcerates people over and over is unsustainable and does not lower the crime rate nor encourage prisoner reformation. When non-violent, first time offenders are incarcerated alongside violent repeat offenders, their chance of recidivating can be drastically altered by their experience in prison. Alternative sentencing for non-violent drug offenders could alleviate this problem, but many current laws hinder many possible solutions. Recently lawmakers have made attempts to lower the recidivism rates in America, for example the Second Chance Act helps aid prisoners returning into society after incarceration. The act allows states to appropriate money to communities to help provide services such as education, drug treatment programs, mental health programs, job corps services, and others to aid in offenders returning to society after incarceration (Conyers, 2013). The Drug Treatment Alternative-to-Prison Program is another attempt to provide better treatment for people who are convicted. The study showed that drug offenders who underwent a treatment program outside of prison had a 26 percent less rate of re-arrest after two years than a control group that was sent to prison (Justice Policy Institute, 2010). Rehabilitative programs like the Second Chance Act and the Drug Treatment Alternative-to-Prison Program has shown to growth and positive

Essentially, the war on drugs has demonstrated to be an exorbitant expense. The federal government in 2002 alone spent $18.822 billion in the form of expenditures such as treatment, prevention, and domestic law enforcement (CSDP, 2007, p. 54). However, given that the drug war has garnered meager results, this investment may be interpreted as a waste of taxpayer dollars. Alternatively, the money that has been allocated to arrest and detain drug offenders may also be a source of contention. CSDP (2007) “Of the 1,846,351 arrests for drug law violations in 2005, 81.7% (1,508,469) were for possession of a controlled substance. Only 18.3% (337,882) were for the sale or manufacture of a drug” (p. 23). Therefore, the individuals who are likely to enter the already overcrowded prisons may be users and the actual not distributors themselves. Thus, prison space that is intended to be reserved for murders and sexual predators is instead being occupied by substance

The issue of prison overcrowding has been an increasing in America. There are about 2.2 million Americans in jail or prison. The number of people in prison have gotten so large that about one in every 100 adults are behind bars. The increase in inmate population in the United States is a concern to me because some of these people have committed non-violent crimes or have drug related crimes. These people should be placed in rehabilitation centers or be counseled about drug distributing. Also when it comes to the public, the money used for funding jails and prisons could be used to help college students pay for school. Governments grants only cover so much of a student’s tuition and money spent on prisons could be replaced with funding students.

state prisons. This number fell in recent years owing to the pressure from SCOTUS and

The idea behind these program was to help treat the offenders for their substance abuse disorders while still holding them accountable for the crime that they had committed (Lutze & Wormer, 2013). Many studies have been conducted in order to assess the effectiveness of drug court programs across the country. In a qualitative study done by Gallagher 100 participants of the drug court program were examined. This study found that of the drug court participants, seventy-nine percent were not rearrested in the follow-up period. Twenty-one percent of those participants were rearrested (Gallagher, 2014). Similarly, Brown found that in a matched cohort study comparing traditional prison sentencing to drug court programs it was shown that there was significantly less recidivism in the drug court participants than in the offenders that were sentenced to jail or prison time. In this study 137 drug court participants were matched with offenders that had been sentenced traditionally. It was shown that the recidivism rate for drug court participants was only thirty percent, whereas the traditionally sentenced participants had a forty-seven percent recidivism rate. Brown also examined the time between program completion and participants committing a new crime. In the drug court participants, the mean time was 614 days, and in the traditionally sentenced participants the average time was 463 days (Brown,

A large cause for the writing of this book is that there is currently not much research or call for a criminal justice reform. According to Alexander the main goal of the book is to “stimulate a much-needed conversation about the role of the criminal justice system in creating and perpetuating racial hierarchy in the United States” (2012:16). Another premise for this research is that it is no longer socially correct to use race to discriminate against people, and Alexander argues that society as a whole is now using the

Fast forward to the present day, we have the Ferguson, Mike Brown of Emmitt Till’s still occurring in our justice system. A person must view the criminal justice threw a godly telescope to see the inequalities that exit, and need to come to the forefront of our government, and the population worldwide. Sentencingproject.org statistically show that African American men, women, and juvenile are arrested more often than any other races across the nations. This report will prove, and argues that racial disparity in the justice system is at large in our system. This research paper will further explain, and presents evidence that display the presence of racial bias in the criminal justice system in America.

This is for inmates that are addicted to heroin this works in conjunction with inmates being in community programs for substance abuse. This is not a program that all prisons have or are even fast to pick up on. This program is for inmates who are in their prerelease phase. In a clinical study it was shown that prisons who participated in methadone maintenance treatment programs were very successful over all in treating prisoners who use heroin (Kinlock, Gordon, Schwartz, & Fitzgerald, 2010). An alternative to treating prisoners in jail after they have no choice or after something horrible was done is treating them before they make it to the point where prison is needed this is called drug court. (Wormer, Persson, 2010). This program would save the communities a lot of money and help out the families of the person who is in trouble. Not all people who commit drug related crimes would qualify but people who would be facing long prison time. This would be for first time offenders who have not committed violent crimes. They would get treatments such as cognitive behavior therapy, drug treatments and be under the very intense supervision of the drug court. There are out patient and in patient programs that are controlled by the offender with how much they are involved or not as reported to the drug court (Wormer, Persson,

When a person takes a drug the chemicals affect the brain by interfering with how the neurons send messages. According to the National Institute on Drug Abuse, the structure of Marijuana and Heroin mimic a natural neurotransmitter which tricks the receptors into allowing the drug to activate neurons inside the brain which interferes with messages and leads to abnormalities of behavior. With other drugs such as cocaine there is an abnormally large amount of neurotransmitters released which disrupts communication channels. Drug abuse can rewire brain connections, decrease synapse activity and cause addiction. The American Psychiatric Association says that addiction is a complex condition, and a brain disease that is manifested by compulsive substance use despite harmful consequence. The National Survey on Drug Use and Health (NSDUH) found that 21.5 million American adults (aged 12 and older) battled a substance use disorder in 2014. Addiction to drugs has been a growing issue in America, and is causing jails to become overcrowded. The Bureau of Justice Statistics found that more than half of federal prisoners were incarcerated for drug crimes in 2010. This leads to the question of whether the justice system is doing an adequate job of dealing with drug addiction. Instead of incarcerating people for drug abuse, an alternative is treating victims by rehab and treatment. This paper will exam why treatment is the superior option for