Prison Overcrowding In America

Five of prisons in Tennessee are presently over capacity with another eight currently operating over 95% of assigned capacity (Malcolm, 2014.) “When prisons become overcrowded, there is less money and manpower to provide much-needed treatment, educational, and skills-enhancement programs in prison, and inmate-to-staff ratios can grow to levels that are unsafe for prison staff and other prisoners” (Malcolm, 2014, paragraph 11.) I believe a way to fix that issue it through using different reforms to affect the overall percentage all together. These reforms include limit sentencing, more programs, more parole and probation officers, and specialized courts.

In 1971, 1 out of 12 Americans were incarcerated. Since that time, the prisoner ratio has exponentially increased; today, that ratio is 1 out of 51. With that number continuing to rise, many problems result out of it. Prison overcrowding is a growing problem in the United States. The number of people being taken in has regressive effects on the purpose behind imprisonment. Though the prisoners are not there for a comfortable and enjoyable stay, ethical rights are being ignored. How can a someone carry out their sentence rightfully if the focus is taken away from them and put on the judgment of the courts and justice system? Prison overcrowding is without a doubt problematic and inhumane. The mandatory sentencing laws, lack of attention on

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

When Robert Gonzalez was 17 years old, he was charged as an adult because the public defender said his actions were an”adult-like crime”. Robert Gonzalez was the “wheel-man” during a robbery. The sentenced Mr.Gonzalez got a sentence of 20 years with 4 months. Proposition 57 is mainly for the juveniles that are getting a second chance to go to rehab and to get better. Proposition 57 is trying to get passed because there are too many people that are getting put into prisons for reasons that can be solved another way. This proposition is wanting to allow non-violent criminals to get out of jail once their primary offense is done. Proposition 57 wants to get rid of prisoners that can get more help outside of prison. However, this proposition is not a get-out-of-jail free card. Doug Porter claims in the article, yes on prop 57, that “In the end, it was ballot measure passed by California voters in 2014 that eased crowding below the threshold set my federal courts in 2009. This proposition started because of the crowding in the prisons. Crowding of the prisons is a big issue because it calls for more

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

The overcrowding of prisons in California and the rest of America is the result of “manufactured crime”. These are crimes which have no victim yet are considered felonies and follow the three strike law. Many people do not know that there are more incarcerated people in America than any other country on earth. According to the American Civil Liberties Union “America contains 5% of the world 's human population while also containing 25% of the world’s prison population. Since 1970, our prison population has risen by some 700% - an increase far outpacing rates of population growth and crime1”. The reason America has so many incarcerated people is not because Americans commit more crimes or the police are just better at finding criminals,

Something will always need to be fixed in society because society is a reflection of us, and we are not perfect. Recently, there’s been many issues that have caught the attention of people living all across the world. Things such as police brutality, sexual assault in the workplace, and immigration law, just to name a few, but there’s also been an underlying issue that people are becoming more informed about, and that I believe matters - prison reform. Prison reform matters because in many instances, prisoners are treated inhumanely when they are locked up, and aren’t treated as humans when they have served their time. I believe we can bring about change in the prison system by changing the way we punish people who do commit crimes and focusing more on actual rehabilitation.

violent or nonviolent (1). It is hard to figure out who is a violent criminal due to the way they were charged under the justice system. There is no way of showing whether or not violence was used while they were dealing or drug using. These statistics prove that by focusing on other resolutions for non-violent crimes, the incarceration rates could be reduced. Along with rehabilitation for drug offenders, there is also a need for proper rehabilitation of mentally ill patients and prisoners to keep them from relapsing and ending up back in the system. Brooks states in his article that in the early 70s, a large majority of people were released from mental institutions. This caused an issue because a lot of these inmates released were not mentally

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.

In America currently there are about 2.3 million people that are incarcerated. The U.S. accounts

In our country today, we account for roughly five percent of the world’s population, yet we hold over twenty-five percent of the globe’s inmate population. According to John Irwin, we currently imprison more people for lesser crimes than any other country in the world. In 1987 alone, our prison population rested steadily at just 500,000 incarcerated inmates in the U.S. Although in the past twenty-seven years, the American prison population has actually quadruped to almost 2.4 million (Pratt, 2009). With that being said, we as a nation hold the highest recidivism rates compared to any other country. Each year, state, federal and local penitentiary’s release more than 630,000 prison inmates back into the general

For many years, there has been a huge debate on whether prisoners should be afforded the opportunity to further their education while in prison. Prison and college are the two most different paths that a person can go down in life. The differences between the two is that college is a positive experience and is rewarding in the end, whereas the other is completely opposite. Another difference between the two is the costs. An article released in 2011 stated that one year at a New Jersey state prison cost $44,000, and one year at Princeton University costs $37,000. Even though most colleges are funded in a variety of ways, most prisons rely on the government to foot the bill. Most would argue that inmates just don 't deserve post-secondary education and that tax dollars are being wasted, but actually there are great

Your discussion was very interesting, frightening, and troubling to read. From the research we have conducted this week, overcrowding seems to be at the top of the list for correctional facilities throughout the country. This one factor is placing the officers that work in these facilities in danger. It’s frustrating to me that so many prisons and jails do not require any type of structure for the inmates. Without structure and overcrowded facilities, a recipe for violence is created. Governments across the country simply must invest more in corrections and their infrastructures. The inmate population shows no sign of being reduced and officer’s safety has to be a priority. New facilities should be designed with more single occupant

The effectiveness of education programs cannot be refuted. One journal article states that “A recent U S Department of Justice report says that 'Prison-based education is the single most effective tool for lowering recidivism,’” (Esperian 2010). Additional studies and reports show education programs cut recidivism by 30 percent or more nationally and cut recidivism more than in half in several large states (Esperian 2010). These results support the argument that “it is far more profitable for states to fund education classes for inmates,” because “doing so reduces recidivism dramatically, and because

By not only reducing the crime rate, it will reduce the amount of prisoners being rearrested and sent back to prison. By these inmates not being sent back to prison this will reduce the money that taxpayers would have to spend. Hudson Link is a privately funded education program for prisons in the state of New York. They pay for inmates who want an education and these inmates have proven to make a change to themselves and our society. The United States is home to less than five percent of the world’s population, but we hold nearly twenty-five percent of the world’s prison population with more than two million people are incarcerated in the United States. It cost the state of New York sixty thousand dollars to incarcerate one person, and in New York there are fifty-six thousand adults incarcerated. Hudson Link found that it would cost on average of five thousand dollars per year for seven years for their inmates to get a bachelor’s degree. Hudson Link saves New York taxpayers more than ten million dollars per year. The national rate of re-incarceration across the United States is forty-three percent, but less than two percent of Hudson Link alumni have returned to prison in over sixteen years. This program comes to show that education in prison facilities is effective and beneficial to our