Parole In Prisons

When the American prison system began, it was believed that rehabilitation, the act of restoring one’s character, could be beneficial for criminals to start over. According to Tom Wicker, “The system…began as a reform impulse, the idea that if offenders were isolated, shielded from the public mockery that had accompanied hangings and the stocks, given time to repent, and worked hard, they could be turned away from crime and transformed into useful citizens” (xii). Criminals could become better citizens and have a positive outlook for a future if they worked hard and were secluded from the outside world. Although this idea seems more humane, it did not last long in the prison system because many people believed that any crime committed deserved

Administration of parole is divided into two divisions: the independent model and consolidated model. Although each model is fairly different from one another, in both models probation services are sometimes combined with parole services in a single statewide agency. Under the independent model the parole board is responsible for making release and revocation decisions, as well as supervising the parolee. Consolidated model is similar but in this type of administration the board makes release and revocation decisions and the supervision of the parolee is under the direction of different agencies. The parole board has a tremendous amount of responsibility when dealing with parolee because they have to generate public support acceptance. Being held accountable is where parole boards must take in consideration of social media, news media, and other public officials well reticule boards for the failure of parolees because they should be responsible for the supervision of the

Crime prevention is a key aim of the criminal justice system. Offenders are incarcerated in prisons in a expectation that they will feel punished enough to learn from their mistakes and not commit further crimes, this is called deterrence and is a main goal of prisons today (Daly, 2003). Prisons in their current form are often overcrowded, anxiety inducing, restrictive and have been found to exacerbate the mental health of offenders (Matthews, 2016). In saying this, research by Crank and Brezina (2012) suggests that some offenders find prison ‘easier than being on the street’. Crank and Brezina (2012) conducted a study where they surveyed a large group of inmates and questioned them on their views of being incarcerated. Many

Just imagine the city of Houston being populated with nothing but prisoners. This is how badly the prison system has gotten overcrowded since the 1980's, and it is only going to get worse. Overpopulation has affected the lives of prisoners inside and outside of prison with a plethora of reasons that cause more harm than good. The only way to solve these problems is to reform the programs inside prisons and to reform the laws in the justice system. Prison reform is needed in the current rehabilitation programs inside of prison since little effort is used to implement a correct recovery for the convicted. Prison reform outside of prison will edit the laws that have sentenced the convicted to unreasonable sentences so that the punished are seeking out a fair sentence or proper rehabilitation. With the problems in prisons, which specifically affect the prisoners?

Angela Davis in her book, Are Prisons Obsolete?, argues for the overall abolishment of prisons. Amongst the significant claims that support Davis’ argument for abolition, the inadequacy of prison reforms stands out as the most compelling. Reform movements truthfully only seek to slightly improve prison conditions, however, reform protocols are eventually placed unevenly between women and men. Additionally, while some feminist women considered the crusade to implement separate prisons for women and men as progressive, this reform movement proved faulty as female convicts increasingly became sexually assaulted. Following the theme of ineffectiveness, the reform movement that advocated for a female approach to punishment only succeeded in strengthening

In March 2008, U.S Congress passed the Second Chance Act. It was passed to reduce the number of people returned to jail after parole release, not because of a crime committed, but because of small violations or other reasons. It was put in place to help the paroles live a better life. It also put in place new services and programs to help paroles get their life in order. Programs like Reentry courts, Educating and Training people for jobs while they are in prison, mentoring programs to adults and teens getting out of jail, drug treatment, alternatives to jail time and other programs to ensure that people who are in the system get a ‘second chance’ in life.

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.

In America, the private prison industry was made for necessary profit based off of the management of prisons by large, private companies. In David Shapiro’s insightful report “Banking on Bondage”, he discusses the logistics of the United States prison system, saying “In America, our criminal justice system should keep us safe, operate fairly, and be cost-effective”. Today, the United States imprisons more people than any other nation in the world, including Russia, China, and Iran. Alongside the issues of private prisons, the increasingly apparent problem of mass incarceration has stripped record numbers of American citizens of their freedom, has a minimal effect on public

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 problem does not seem to be slowing down either. Congress continually passes new criminal offenses. The same conduct passes through the floor on a regular basis, but comes out with more guidelines on the previous laws. From 2000 to 2007. Congress enacted 452 new criminal offenses. That’s a new offense every week. There is no way that all of those offenses enacted, did not umbrella another. Congress probably means well, at least I like to think that. At what point do they realize that they are making countless vague or broad law?

The prison system itself is corrupted and unfair to those individuals in it. Even though there are reform programs within the prisons, many prisoners return to prison due to inconsistent follow ups and the absence of these programs outside of prison. This creates high recidivism rates because they have a place to sleep and guaranteed meals and outside of prison it’s harder from them to have access to all of that. Elliot Currie states, “As we have crammed more and more offenders into prison, we have simultaneously retreated from the already minimal commitment to help them reenter productive society.” When the Eastern State Penitentiary was first opened in 1829, its main focus was to rehabilitate prisoners so they could reenter society (Eastern State Penitentiary). Now, overcrowding is a major issue in the United States prison system. According to the FBI Releases Preliminary Semiannual Crime Statistics for 2015, the most common crime was possession drug crimes, followed by property crimes. This shows that majority of those incarcerated in prison are there for nonviolent crimes. The government should change their drug law policies and instead of doing prison time, be forced to pay a hefty fine. This way, it can reduce jail and prison populations and thereby reducing recidivism

Prisons were created to keep out the bad and abnormal that were disturbing society, but over time urbanization and capitalism advanced prisons into working factories. Prisons are a way for people to reflect on the decisions that they have made. In Chapter 5, Redemption and Hope, Reamer reflects of the different ways prisoner’s coup with being released on parole. Surprisingly, there are many inmates that get released and commit another crime and are sent right back in because they violate their probation. However, there are the lucky ones who make it out and stay out. There are many rehabilitation centers that help drug addicts to be clean and there are some opportunities that prisoners have when they get out. It is hard, though, for prisoners to get stable jobs because of their record. Being on the parole board for Reamer is one of the most challenging things he’s ever had to face because he believes that the system can be unfair sometimes. There are decisions he has to make that may or may not affect society. He brings up the word “hope” again because he believes that “hope” is part of the recovery and dedication of people to become clean and stay out of prison. But he also states, I can relate to, that no matter how much you believe in a person, don’t get too comfortable because there is always something that’s going to disturb that peace and its going to happen again. That stood out to me because

School programs were without supplies, inmate classifications weren’t distinguishable, detailed treatment plans fell short, and harsh fines depleted the worth and value of paid labor. Due to the lack of guidelines for indeterminate sentencing the original promise and purpose was lost and abused by officials seeking to gain further control over insubordinate inmates. Parole board members were unqualified and failed at adequately reviewing offenders progress or failures. Overcrowding pushed for early release, rendering requirements lax and often overlooked. Once released, parole officers failed at physically supervising offenders, relying on paperwork and formalities to monitor their progress and reform (Blomberg & Lucken, 2010, pp. 80-82).

The United States of America contains the third largest population in the world, which contradicts the fact that the United States has the largest prison population in the world (Aliprandini, and Finley). The fact that their prison population is so large alludes to the reason they would have a strong parole system. Due to contrary belief, this is not the case. Furthermore, the parole system is known to have a multitude of problems laced within it, these problems can be solved by focusing on parolee and parole officer relationships, and partaking in systems that improve the underlying issues. Following through to fix these affairs may seem unrealistic, but a solution could be in sight.

Parole is defined as the provisional release of a prisoner who agrees to certain conditions prior to the completion of the maximum sentence period. The word parole originated from the French which meant "voice" or "spoken words". This has come to mean an offenders promise to act as a law abiding citizen according to rules and regulations in exchange for release. Essentially parole means that the offender is released from prison prior to the expiry of his or her entire sentence of imprisonment to serve the remainder of the sentence in the community under the supervision of the parole officer, subject to specific conditions that must be complied with.