Prisons: Rehabilitation In The United States

United States Prison System: Effectiveness of Rehabilitation Programs for criminals Prisons, at their core, are designed to stop people from committing crimes. The United States prison system is currently failing at meeting this basic principle. The United States has the highest incarceration rate of any democratic nation in the world (Bureau Justice of Statistics). The problem is revealed through the recidivism rates, with sixty six thousand criminals being re- incarcerated within three years of being released ( Lawrence). The prison environment creates hardened criminals who leave prison with no new skills and commit the same crimes in smarter ways, being even harder to catch.

When the American prison system began, it was believed that rehabilitation, the act of restoring one’s character, could be beneficial for criminals to start over. According to Tom Wicker, “The system…began as a reform impulse, the idea that if offenders were isolated, shielded from the public mockery that had accompanied hangings and the stocks, given time to repent, and worked hard, they could be turned away from crime and transformed into useful citizens” (xii). Criminals could become better citizens and have a positive outlook for a future if they worked hard and were secluded from the outside world. Although this idea seems more humane, it did not last long in the prison system because many people believed that any crime committed deserved

Over the past 40 years U.S. incarceration has grown at an extraordinary rate, with the United States’ prison population increasing from 320,000 inmates in 1980 to nearly 2.3 million inmates in 2013. The growth in prison population is in part due to society’s shift toward tough on crime policies including determinate sentencing, truth-in-sentencing laws, and mandatory minimums. These tough on crime policies resulted in more individuals committing less serious crimes being sentenced to serve time and longer prison sentences. The 1970s-1980s: The War on Drugs and Changes in Sentencing Policy Incarceration rates did rise above 140 persons imprisoned per 100,000 of the population until the mid 1970s.

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,

However, the construction of new prison facilities has not provided a sustainable solution for the reduction in crime rates in the society. Incarceration has also proven to be expensive. There are several costs associated with incarceration. These include costs of building new facilities, costs of paying prison staff, maintaining the prisons and costs of treating particular classes of prisoners such as elderly and mentally ill inmates. The United States spends billions of dollars on incarceration each year with the average yearly increase in state spending on prisons from 1999 to 2009 being approximately 3 percent (James, 2011, p.632).

Parole is defined in our text as “the supervised early release of inmates from correctional confinement” (Schmalleger, p.388). There can be a lot of drawbacks and failures to this system. There currently is a huge overpopulation problem in our prisons here in the United States. “ A 2012 report by the Government Accounting Office (GAO) found from the fiscal year 2006 to 2011, the inmate population in Bureau of Prisons run facilities grew 9.5%, while capacity grew less than 7%. As a result, BOP’s overall crowding increased during this period from 36% to 39%” (Schmalleger, p.434). What does this mean for society? More and more criminals are being released on parole, expecting to be monitored, and many falling through the cracks of the system to

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,

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.

In todays society the increase of violence and crime has lead many people incarcerated causing many prison facility’s to be over crowded. Many prison facility’s are under staff and very low funded to help keep the security, safety, and medical needs of prisoners. According to an article “Mass Incarceration: The Whole Pie” by Peter Wagner and Bernadette Rabuy, every year more then 636,000 people leave prison, but there are over 11 million people entering into prison. In addition, many of these crimes that people committed are mostly drug, alcohol related, and non-violate offenses. In order to keep prisons from being over crowded, courts would have people with minor and non-violent offense be released on probation.

The American prison system incarcerates more people than any other country, being the 5 percent of the world’s population yet is home to 25 percent of the world’s prisoners. There is approximately 2.2 million inmates incarcerated in The United States, the grand majority serving minor nonviolent offenses. According to the Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) inmate statistics, drug offences make up 46.4 percent of offences in prisons combining that of homicide, aggravated assault, immigration, embezzlement, sex offences, burglary, weapons and extortion all combined.

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.

Prison Overcrowding in America 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).

This approach also prevents overcrowding in prisons because it also deals with rehabilitative

Overcrowded prison is one of the main issues of poor prison conditions around the world. From the article of The Council of State Governments Justice Center in 2010, it shows that the prison population at Indiana have been a 47% increase, amount from 19,309 to 28,389 between 2000 and 2010. Furthermore, overcrowded prison brings a lot of following problems such as damage to taxpayers, illness, and the risk of guards and prisoners safety. According to The TASA Group (2017), “Overcrowded prisons may mean fewer security checks performed by the officers.” So remission can decrease the number of prisoners and then the officers can control and protect prison to be safety more than before.

Many teenagers simply aren 't aware of the consequences of crime. Teenagers also often don 't understand laws and law enforcement practices in their area. Peer pressure is also another reason why teens could fall into a life of crime. Peer pressure is stronger than many realize, and has led to fatal overdoses, unwanted pregnancies, car accidents, violent crime and dangerous accidents. Peer pressure is very prevalent in the teenage years, and drug use is one of its most frequent results.