Prisons Are Closed Institutions

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

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.

Prison Overcrowding and the Death Penalty There are 2.3 million people incarcerated in prison or jail in the United States of America. The United States of America has the highest incarceration of any country in the world. One out of five people in prison is in there for drug crimes (Rabuy, 2017). Prison overcrowding is inhumane and unnecessary to protect society from offenders. Prison overcrowding is due to mandatory minimum sentences, three strikes laws, the war on drugs, and lack of rehabilitation programs.

A huge problem across the nation is that offenders are returning to prison after previously being convicted of a crime. This may not seem like a big deal, but this shows that our prisons are failing us on the one thing the system promises to do, which is to keep us safe. Prison is supposed to be a place where we use deterrence to try and keep people from doing illegal things, but obviously it is not working. Since recidivism is such a huge issue, we need to find the issue and figure out how to resolve it to better our country and our people. First, let’s discuss the economic aspect of recidivism.

To cause a revolution, there must have been a substantial amount of people who believed in the same thing. Without a rebellion, America would not be what it is today. In Albert Camus’ The Stranger, Meursault is on trial because his society believes that he is a rebel. He does not belong, so his society wants to get rid of him, however, rebels are a necessity in this world because they help society grow. Rebels can include just about anyone that has made a change in society.

Prison Overcrowding and the Death Penalty There are 2.3 million people incarcerated in prison or jail in the United States of America. The United States of America has the highest incarceration of any country in the world. One out of five people in prison is in there for drug crimes (Rabuy, 2017). Prison overcrowding is inhumane and unnecessary to protect society from offenders. Prison overcrowding is due to mandatory minimum sentences, three strikes laws, the war on drugs, and lack of rehabilitation programs.

Overcrowding Prisons In 1980, almost 200 years after prisons were first used as a criminal sanction, there were only 316,000 sentenced prisoners under state or federal jurisdiction. In only thirty years, from 1980 to 2010, the number of prisoners increased by almost 500 percent, to more than 1.6 million inmates. (Seiter, 2014, p. 130) Most of our prisons are filled with offenders that have not actually committed violent crimes. Many individuals are in jailed because they committed a crime that involved drugs or for getting a DUI. People with these types of offenses should be sentenced to a rehabilitation program.

This new law caused an increase from an estimated 300,000 to 2 million prison inmates over the course of the last two decades. (Michelle Alexander, 2010) According to Rebecca C. Hatey and Jennifer L. Eberhdt of Stanford University, California holds only 7% of African American population but 45% of California’s prison inmates are African American under the three strikes law. (Racial Disparities in Incarceration Increase Acceptance of Punitive Policies 2014) Michelle Alexander writes that the mass incarceration of the 1990’s created a new “racial caste system” and extreme funding for the criminal system. (Michelle Alexander, 2010:58) The three strikes law targeted the communities affluent with minority groups. At the turn of the 21st century the majority that entered the prison system were African Americans and Latinos.

“ We are not moving nearly fast enough to reduce incarceration… Over 2 million Americans live caged… a 550 percent increase in the last 40 years. ” Most of the people in the world are in jail. Therefore , incarceration is not lowering due to people being imprisoned on a daily basis. Half of the people in the world commit very bad crimes , which lead them to be imprisoned. “ Rape and sexual abuse are rampant , and tens of thousands of people

And the fact that in layman’s terms, the law is carried out by a bunch of people that are usually right but might sometimes be wrong in certain cases doesn’t actually help. So, this means we should justify breaking the law. However, before I give up and justify breaking the law, consider what would happen if whenever an individual felt that the law was wrong and decided that a mistake was made and justified breaking the law and broke it. If everyone did the same the law would be more a series of guidelines for people to consider and not necessarily follow, and when the law holds no power, courts will be useless and eventually in my opinion, chaos would ensue. People will do whatever they want without a fear of consequences because they will always find a reason to justify breaking the law I believe what makes this whole law argument extremely confusing and difficult is the nature of the law.

We are paying too much for prisons and this can be greatly reduced I believe. The goal of going to prison in my opinion is to have that person change, realize what they’ve done and have a form of normalization practiced in the prisons so they have that preparation for re-assimilation into the normal world. Don’t get me wrong, SOME inmates do not deserve a second change to be with society again. Those I would consider to be the more heinous of crimes. I’m referring to the medium to lesser charges, including drug charges and immigration.

1. A survey conducted in Washington; the survey showed that the majority of the public believed that treatment and job training programs in prisons must increase for the sake of public safety, so when an inmate is released they will be a productive citizen. The survey also showed that the public believes that there are too many low-risk and non-violent offenders in prison. 2. Correctional agencies reduce their operating costs by Reducing Unnecessary Consumption of Medical Services, tightening contracting and auditing, using in-house medical services when it is less expensive, reducing the inmate population, and decreasing parole revocation rate.

In this article research was performed to test the reoccurrence of crime in offenders. The study group contained more than four thousand prisoners with substance abuse problems. The study was performed for 2.7 years. During the study more than sixty percent repeated crimes. The outcome proved that offenders needed treatment even after being released from prison.