Prison Problems in the U.S. The United States have the biggest incarceration rate in the world. Our prisons are full of convicts, rapists, and murderers. One of our biggest problems are is that we don't have enough money too feed them and keep a roof over their heads. Another issue is the proportion of middle aged men in our country are either black or hispanic. It causes issues because colored people think white people (esspecially white police officers) are racist. There has been a lot of police brutality toward colored people yet white people have to endure that too, we are all equal. The U.S. needs to ensure officers aren't being to violent yet keep it so we know we are safe. Another conflict is prison violence,
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,
First, there is a long list of negatives that the prison system in America brings. The prison system is filled with crime, hate, and negativity almost as much as the free world is. When in prison, we see that those who were in gangs are still in gangs and that those who were not, are likely to join during their sentence. Naturally the prisons are filled with criminals who not only bring with them a record of past wrong but also an attitude of anger and or survival when they walk behind the walls of prison. This attitude of anger fueled by the thought of survival keeps most from ever experiencing renewal or change when behind bars. While in the world they were criminals running from the law and while in prison
One of the main issues when it comes to the prison and correctional system is the living conditions, according to an article on “Kicker”,”How the prison system is failing”, the living conditions are described as poor and inhumane. These living conditions also lead to serious incapacitation, which means there is not enough space for newly convicted criminals to fit inside the prisons.
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
The prison system is very expensive for taxpayers because they have to pay to employ the officers, they have to pay for the building, the tools, the food for them to eat, there clothing and bedding. As stated here “The more money a state spends on building and running prisons, the less there is for everything else, from roads and bridges to health care and public
The skin is the largest organ of the human body and can display a range of different colors depending on the amount of melanin, a protein produced by special skin cells, that is in the skin. The more melanin that is created, the darker the skin tone. Despite the fact skin color is such a minor physiological difference, many have decided that it is enough of a reason to hate and discriminate against the minorities who possess a little more melanin than they do. This prejudice has managed to extensively infiltrate the justice system and law enforcement, causing black men to face multiple injustices such as being more likely to be convicted and given longer prison sentences than white men for the same crimes, having higher chances of being shot
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.
As mentioned before United States of America has the biggest prison population in the world. According to the Criminal Justice
There are more African Americans in prison now, than there were enslaved in 1850. These individuals are not in prison because they are committing more crimes than their white counterparts, but because of a discriminatory system that targets african americans. Blacks can commit the same crimes as whites, but are more likely to be imprisoned and or receive a steeper sentence. This disproportionate racial sentencing has been a growing issue the United States for four decades, and started with the Reagan Administration's War On Drugs. Private prison organizations lobby for harsher punishments, and profit from the influx of inmates. With more African Americans in jail, this has had a crippling effect on the black community. The children of these inmates grow up without one of their parents, they to do poorly in school and have negative view on police officers and the law.
Unfortunately, there are racial disparities in the United States in the legal system. Prison sentences imposed on African American males in the federal system are nearly 20 percent longer than white males convicted of similar crimes. The 1994 Crime Bill signed by President Clinton established mandatory minimum sentences. African American and Latino offenders sentenced in state and federal courts face greater odds of incarceration than white offenders who are in similar situations and receive longer sentences than whites in some jurisdictions. Research has shown that race plays a significant role in determination on which homicide cases resulted in death sentences.
The U.S. prison systems has evolved greatly in the pasts centuries in many ways, but the most critical part where it greatly improved was the security of the facilities, the inmate treatment, and the construction of the building of how stable it is.The first and most important is the security. A prison system has to have a strict security system because without it prisoners can do whatever they want. So, they developed a security system where there are five levels: the higher the level is the stronger it is. Not all prisons do the same security because different buildings mean different levels. Prison cells have changed in the past couple years to withstand rust or mold from disturbing or breaking the iron bars. The second most important improvement was the treatment of inmates/prisoners. The prisoners have changed a lot in the past century or so because they have developed a new way for entertainment or pleasure. That was sexual humiliation of what the prisoners did to each other. Other than pleasure they have gotten more dangerous because in prison, criminals have records that have skulls or stars that show how dangerous they are. The more skulls, the more dangerous a prisoner is. Since criminals have gotten more dangerous the guards’ weapons have gotten more advanced with stun guns, dogs, or batons. The third and final important point in the prison system is how strong the building is. The building is larger so they can put more prisoners; the bigger the building, the harder it is to escape. The bigger the better but it wouldn’t matter because it depends on how strong the buildings is. So they made the buildings mold, rust and physical resistance from the inside or outside. Other improvements they have made is non-combustible concrete walls, roofs and floors that do not produce smoke or toxic fumes which prevents anything from happening in or outside of the building. The U.S. prisons have developed a lot in the century in security system, inmate treatment, and
Criminal legislation and incarceration have long been used as a means to control "powerless" and disadvantaged groups in America. These groups are socially and politically neglected and only receive attention when they are perceived to be a threat to the larger society and then the attention comes in the form of control and punishment (Page, 1993). The control generally manifests itself through crime legislation and the punishment through incarceration. By the end of 2005, there were more than 7 million people under some form of criminal justice supervision (Glaze & Bonczar 2006; Harrison & Beck, 2006a). With such a large and growing number of people under correctional control during a time in which crime rates had either fallen or were stabilizing raises important questions about the purpose and consequences of this institutional intervention. While "tough on crime" policies may be effective in incapacitating offenders, little consideration has been given to the impact this mass incarceration effort has had on offenders following their release from prison. Every year more than 600,000 people are released from jails and prisons to face the challenge of re-entering society in a productive capacity (Geiger, 2006; Travis, Solomon, & Waul, 2001). Due to the collateral consequences of a criminal conviction, reintegration is often met with a host of daunting and unnecessary barriers. Black Americans comprise a major segment of the neglected population and when they are released from prison the barriers to reintegration are often compounded by the stigma of their racial classification and the mark of a criminal
From healthcare to personal safety, inmates are suffering illnesses, abuse, excessive sentences, and maltreatment at an astronomical rate. There has been a vast debate on the issue. There are many arguments for lesser prison sentences and better prison conditions. Mass Incarceration on Trial, A Remarkable Court Decision and the Future of Prisons in America, written by Jonathan Simon, illustrates how our nation has become far removed from treating prisoners as human beings who deserving dignity and our nation has failed to properly address this grossly flawed prison system; particularly California.
Without laws and governmental overseeing, private prisons can restrict the amenities available to prisoners. Although prisoners still maintain the majority of rights that non-prisoners do according to the law, the quality of life in private prisons is strictly at the mercy of millionaires who are looking to maximize their profits (Tencer 2012). In order to maintain those max profits, the prisons must stay full. Private prisons often have stricter rules that result in extended sentences for what are usually minor