Prisons: Rehabilitation In The United States

One of the harshest ways a juvenile can be punished is by serving a term of life in prison. Most do not know a lot about the factors that help the court make this decision. In Carmichael’s article, he states that throughout the most recent decades, laws controlling transfer provisions, and sentencing legislation have made movement towards making sanctions for adolescent offenders more reformatory (2012). These approaches have led to an expanding number of juveniles being adjudicated in an adult criminal court and the youth’s that are sentenced are serving longer sentences than planned (602). In 2012, almost seven thousand inmates were serving life sentences for crimes they committed as juveniles (603).

Since the law is set in place for any person who receives a criteria fitting third strike, whether it is from a big or small crime, the person is sent away to prison for basically the rest of their life. Due to the growth of the amount of people being sent to prison as a result of this policy, it is continuing to be more and more expensive to keep them in prison. High crime rate in California was the tipping point for former president Clinton to pass the law. The prison located in California now holds roughly 135,000 inmates (Shipley 1). It has more than doubled mainly because of the policy.

This statistic could steam from since 1980 to present the prison system has quadrupled in population from a half of million people to roughly 2.5 million people(NAACP,2015). Some would say that this is the reason for the downward trend of violent crimes in America, Because more of the people are locked up and not on the streets in order to commit crimes. Which may be the case, but the question still remains why is the statics of race in the prison system still a overwhelmingly different. For Example African Americans are locked up 6 times more than white offenders, As of 2008 the prison system is predominantly (58%) made up of African Americans and Latinos (NAACP,2015). From these statistics, it could possibly be assumed that the socioeconomic status from where a person is from could lead to a answer as to why this is happening all over

Over the years budget crises have forced many states to re-examine budgets, starting with the cost of maintaining their prison and jail systems. The United States has the largest prison population with about two million prisoners. To try and make a plan for the large population and some budget cuts, politicians want to change some of the parole policies and are trying to get some of the criminal laws revised for some drug offenders and white collar criminals. Due to the fact that the politicians are undecided the have put work release programs and strict parole release into effect. Prison is a place for people who break the law should be detained, but if the prisoner has twelve months or less until their release date, and show that they have been

African Americans comprise 31% of individuals arrested for drug violations. In eleven states, at least 1 in 20 black adults are in prison. Research shows that prosecutors are twice as likely to pursue a mandatory minimum sentence for black people as for white people charged with the same crime. One in nine black children and one in 38 Latino children have an incarcerated parent, compared to one in 57 white children. Higher rates of incarceration in minority communities have lead to the destruction of the family

“Black Lives Matter” (BLM) is an international activist movement, originating in the African American community, that campaigns against violence toward black people”(Petersen-Smith,1). Over the years, since the black power struggle “Between 1970 and 2005, the prison population increased by a historically unprecedented 700 percent. According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics, roughly half of federal prisoners are incarcerated for drug offenses”(Petersen-Smith,3). This was due to inequality and police officers abusing their power. “Black youth are ten times more likely than white youth to be arrested for drug crimes” according to the ISR (International Socialist Review).

Incidentally, children who have a difficult time socializing or become aggressive with other children in early school years are more likely to become criminal in the future. In this sense, influence of peers is easily a tell-tale sign of future criminal behavior. If a child is less involved with their peers and outcasted the likelihood of the child becoming criminal rises. Aditionally, if a child were brought up in either socioeconomic standpoints, child abuse/neglect plays a significant role in future criminality. A study shows that a child who experienced abuse/neglect were at a 50% higher risk to involve themselves in criminal acts.

According to data from The Sentencing Project, roughly 2.2 million people are in the United States’ jails and prisons. The United States is currently leading the world in incarceration rates, and this is no accident. There have been many laws, policies and attitudes brought forward that have resulted in this statistic. As a result, there are effects of the current prison system, and hardly any are positive. There is an overrepresentation in many aspects of the prison and jail population that are worth considering.

This is because prior to this period, convicts were taken to prison with the aim of rehabilitating and correcting their behaviors but this had changed as the convicts were incarcerated and given long sentences based on the specified federal offenses. The resultant is inmates staying in prison for most of their lives, usually until they are old. The current increase in the number of convict in correctional facilities is high with majority serving long sentence, indicating the population

Have you ever wondered how many people actually get arrested in a year? According to the U.S Department of Justice, a staggering estimate of over 14 million people were arrested in 2005. Of those 14 million people that were arrested, about 1.53 million of them were sentenced to a jail term. That same year a study was done on 404,638 newly released prisoners in 30 states. The study showed that within three years, about 67.8 percent of released prisoners were rearrested and within five years about three-quarters of them were arrested.

Mental health in a correctional setting The numbers of people with mental illnesses are rising at a high rate within jails and prisons. The United States has the highest per capita rate of people incarcerated in the world. Statistically people who have some sort of mental illness have a greater risk of being incarcerated than those without. Why is this? Over the last ten to twelve years, a large amount of treatment facilities have shut down due to funding (What source?).