"Prisons are closed institutions. They are established and funded by governments to hold people against their will". This seems to be a known thought amongst society members based on personal beliefs. People often ask themselves if there is a need to reform prisons. The government, citizens, educators, and even prisoners are divided about the right answers. There is disagreement in society about how the purpose of the prison system should be considered. On one hand, the regulations of the prison system may seek deterrence, incapacitation, or retribution to avoid appearing too soft on inmates. On the other hand, the regulations of the prison system may seek to opportunities to re-socialize prisoners or to effect changes in the character, attitudes, …show more content…
To determine success in the prison system, the considerable resolutions are reducing incarceration rates and reducing recidivism. Fewer prisoners means fewer crimes are being committed. Fewer returning prisoners means the prison system is effective. The value of the prison system is not in locking away citizens permanently, but instead to keep people out of prisons by creating the conditions for a law-abiding life. By both measures, the status quo is yielding questionable results. 51% of all prisoners released are returned to the prison system and nearly 30% are returned within the first six months of their release (Pinard, 2006). Roughly two-thirds of all prisoners are rearrested within three years (Pinard, 2006). The high rates of incarceration and recidivism have reinvigorated debate about the purpose of the prison. The time is ripe to debate prison reform. "America 's penal system needs a top-to-bottom overhaul - and a movement of people ready to do something about it is taking shape nicely" (McCarthy, …show more content…
As a community there is much to benefit by debating prison reform. First, a growing number of teams are critical on the affirmative. Part of their frustration with policy-oriented debate is the topic pushes a conservative perspective by avoiding real areas of controversy relevant to left oriented debaters. If as a community, we want critical teams to defend a plan, then we should consider giving them a resolution they cannot reasonably refuse. At some point, the place of the radical rightly belongs to the negative, but only when the topic provides a place for substantive structural change. Some will argue that no resolution is enough for some teams, but if that is so then there is no harm in a topic badly in need of discussion and the negatives framework ground is greatly improved by the number of topical affirmatives available to a critical affirmative. The topic provides plenty of core policy making ground in the areas of prison
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Show MoreOver 2 million people are currently being held in United States prisons, and while the U.S. may only hold 5% of the world’s population, it houses 25% of its prisoners. In the past few years, America’s prison system has fallen under public scrutiny for it’s rising incarceration rate and poor statistics. Many Americans have recently taken notice of the country’s disproportionate prisoner ratio, realized it’s the worst on the planet, and called for the immediate reformation of the failing system. The war on drugs and racial profiling are some of the largest concerns, and many people, some ordinary citizens and others important government figures, are attempting to bring change to one of the country 's lowest aspects.
This preconceived notion could not be farther from the truth. In reality, these reform movements are idiotically placing a bandaid over the tremendous issue that the prison system is. An imbalance of reforms between women and men, unrestrained sexual abuse in women’s prisons, and tyrannical gender roles are just three of countless examples of how prison reform movements only create more misfortune and fail to provide any real solution to worsening prison conditions. Perhaps instead of conjuring up additional ideas on how to reform prisons, America’s so-called democratic society should agree upon abolishing prisons as a whole. This being said, it is crucial to identify ongoing issues in today’s society, understand how they contribute to unlawful behavior, and seek a solution.
There are good things about prisons. There are private prisons that can handle jobs that the regular prisons can’t. Private prisons can help inmates with addiction to lower recidivism rate (ProCon.org). Some of these prisons help inmates stay out of prison for good. Some prisons can stop violence from happening around the prison.
penal system, however, many are unsure how to reform it. How can we equally make prisons more humane and effective? In order to answer this, we need to look at the successful prison systems in other countries. In the article Prison 'not for punishment' in Sweden, Nils Oberg claims that “Our role is not to punish. The punishment is the prison sentence: they have been deprived of their freedom.
Why the prison system is flawed The american prison system is flawed and should be changed because it is very expensive to keep it running the way it is, the prison system is helping gangs grow and it can be fixed it is possible. I believe that it needs to change so that cities will have more tax money to fix other things and the people who don't deserve to get released won't be. 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.
One of the most common problems with prisons in America today is how they are all overcrowded. One reason that prisons keep receiving more prisoners is the fact that the reoffending rate among prisoners is extremely high. According to the article “Recidivism Rate by State 2023”, 44% of criminals released from prison return within their first year out. For comparison, according to the U.K government, the average reoffending rate in the U.K is around 25%. That is almost a 20% difference between the countries which just goes to emphasize the glaring issue of reoffending rates in America.
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.
Private Prisons and Mass Incarceration–The Problem of the United States 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.
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.
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.
Those who find themselves sentenced to time in a penitentiary, jail, or prison are at risk of either being broken or strengthened by the time they spend behind bars. There is a great debate of whether or not the prison system in the United States is positive or negative. The following will briefly highlight the positives, negatives, and possible alternatives for our nation's prison system. 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.
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.
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. Introduction: Day after day, millions of inmates sit in jail doing nothing productive with their lives. We are paying to house inmates that may not even have a good reason to be there. For example, drug offenders are being kept with murderers and other violent offenders.
Thesis Hypothesis and Statement: Prisons in in the United States of America are definitely overcrowded, they are understaffed and I believe put very little effort on rehabilitation. The U.S. prison system was set up to rehabilitate prisoners so they can blend back into society as good people. But the factors as high crime rate and of course, mandatory sentences have caused a very high over crowding in our jail systems. This have caused a high increase in the budget deficit. Some citizens will say, where was the rehabilitation that we once used and it has all but now disappeared in our prison and jail system today.
First you hate them, then you get used to them. Enough time passes, you get so you depend on them. That 's institutionalized.’ A prison should aim at retribution, incapacitation, deterrence and rehabilitation. I am very well convinced that prison has served its first three purposes by depriving offenders’ freedom, but the