Pros And Cons Of Overcrowding In Prisons

Solitary confinement, in my opinion, is cruel and unusual punishment. If there was not a mental-health crisis in America, and there was in fact a rehabilitation-focused prison system, solitary confinement would be greatly reduced and used much more sparingly. What is the point of driving people to madness by putting them in isolation? It would be so much cheaper for tax payers to change the system to a more effective one that actually reduces

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. 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

The need for more prisons is not really a need. I am not in favor of the there being more prisons built in this world. Serving time in prison is supposed to be as unpleasant as possible. I am also not in favor of prisoners being mistreated by other inmates and or facility staff members. There are prison guards that often beat inmates and rape female inmates. These issues are also widely ignored. Here is California, we have one of the 10 worst prisons in America. Speaking of Pelican Bay State Prison. This prison located in Crescent City, California, has 3500 inmates. Out of the 3500 prisoners, 1500 of them are in solitary. Of that 1500 in solitary, 500 of them have been in solitary in excess of a decade. Are we sure, building more

“Where to Invade next” is a social documentary movie. In this movie, Moore first visited an island prison in Norway, this prison just like a resort with only four guards for a prison population of 114, the prisoner could go fishing and sunbathing. That was totally amazed me for sure when I got this information, but on the following act, the warden explained that:“ I don’t understand why you think this is a strange idea. … The main idea is just to take away their freedom. That’s the only punishment we are giving them, We are trying to help them back to society.” those words sounds are not very reasonable to me, although it sounds like a humane idea, because no one could guarantee that those criminal not escape from the prison, but that fact is, it works very well and that encourages me to think deeper about it. Does the prison really deprive the freedom of

It clearly violates the eighth amendment that states, “[E]xcessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted." (Eighth Amendment.) The segment of ‘cruel’ refers to a punishment that is brutal and inflicts severe pain of the suspect, whilst ‘unusual’ implies that the punishment is generally not associated with the crime that has been presumably been committed. The supreme court of Georgia explained, in a five to four ruling, that “capital sentencing based on the unguided discretion of juries offends the "cruel and unusual punishment" clause of the Eighth Amendment” due to the fact that it permits “juries to impose the distinctively profound sentence of death on some convicted defendants while other juries impose the far different sentence of life imprisonment on large numbers of similarly situated defendants convicted of exactly the same crime.” (Furman v.

The research could have constructed more than one site to carry out the experiment then compare the results to see whether they got the same findings.

This week’s text revealed that offenders spending more than six years in a supermax prison, will suffer from mental illness. Long term solitary confinement promotes anger, confusion, and depression within inmates (Schmalleger & Smykia, 2015). Nevertheless, there are no studies that support the claim of confinement causing mental illness. If a person causes harm to any innocent victim for any reason and is convicted of the heinous crime(s) he or she should be sentenced

In Jeff Jacoby’s “Bring Back Flogging,” he compares the punishments for crimes in the 17th Century to the punishments for crimes in the present. Jacoby suggests in his essay that “the Puritans were more enlightened than we think, at least on the subject of punishment. Their sanctions were humiliating and painful, but quick and cheap.” Jacoby makes a good argument to bring back an old punishment policy. He points out that “a humiliating and painful paddling can be applied to the rear end of a crook for a lot less than $30,000 (per year).” Jacoby’s point makes sense. Why should we waste money on the living expenses of convicts, especially if the outdated policy could prove more effective? Jacoby uses an excellent approach to drawing his audience

In my honest opinion solitary confinement in the U.S. is not justified and only does more harm than good. Not only is it a rash punishment, but it is one of the worst kinds of psychological tortures that could be inflicted upon an inmate. Human beings are undoubtedly social creatures and without the mere contact of another person the mind decays and ultimately leads a person to anger, anxiety, and hopelessness. Psychologists also claim that solitary confinement and isolation in general also cause depression or the loss of ability to have any "feelings", cognitive disturbances, such as confused thought processes and disorientation, perceptual distortions, such as hypersensitivity to noises and smells, distortions of sensations, and hallucinations affecting all five senses, as well as paranoia and psychosis which often times involve schizophrenic type symptoms, and finally, the worst of all symptoms, being self-harm such as self-mutilation, cutting and even suicide attempts.

In Adam Gopnik 's piece “Caging of America,” he discusses one of the United States biggest moral conflicts: prison. Gopniks central thesis states that prison itself is a cruel and unjust punishment. He states that the life of a prisoner is as bad as it gets- they wake up in a cell and only go outside for an hour to exercise. They live out their sentences in a solid and confined box, where their only interaction is with themselves. Gopnik implies that the general populace is hypocritical to the fact that prison is a cruelty in itself. The citizens of the the United States preach moral equality and the wrongdoings of their government, yet they fail to realize the horrors that occur when trapped in a cell the size of your bathroom. The article makes great points against the criminal- justice system and their cruel punishment towards prisoners, but the author has failed to persuade me because although their current state in the system might be wrong, it doesn 't take from the fact that they are convicted felons who need to do their time, even if

Shawshank’s Redemption, an all-time best movie produced in 1994 starred and led by actors Tim Robbins and Morgan Freeman. A story about two imprisoned men’s experience with the corrupted prison institution through their way of self-redemption. There is a line, which was well read by Morgan Freeman, I am particularly fond of. Here I quote ‘These walls are funny. 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

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.

Prison is not the best place to be in, you’re held in jail for breaking the law and you get punishment. Though the punishment is very cruel. Anyone would have felt unsafe being with other criminals and locked up with no way out. In the same article as the previous on, about St. Clair Holman in Alabama it stated, “On the night of March 11, prisoners’ frustration over living conditions at Holman finally boiled over. Aguard responding to a fight between inmates was stabbed. When Warden Davenport arrived at the scene, he was stabbed too. For several hours, up to 100 prisoners took over a dorm, setting fires and carrying makeshift weapons.” What the author is trying to say is that inmates became so frustrated with the fact that their dorms are to packed that they decided to make a riot. Setting fires and running around the cells with makeshift weapons shows how highly these prisoners hate their living conditions. In order to help this prison in Alabama they need to change how things are. Additionally, in order to help prisoners to civilize they need centers in the prison to help them. Prisoners inside be able to talk to someone about their issues. Dr Marayca Lopez from penal reform international wrote a article about ‘How to build for success: prison design and infrastructure as a tool for rehabilitation. “A new generation of rehabilitation centers should provide spaces that reduce stress, fear and trauma; spaces that

Imagine being locked up in a confined space with little to no air conditioning, concrete walls, concrete floors, poor sanitation, rowdy peers, no soft comforts of a home, and a lack of the everyday basic needs. What I am describing to you is a little thing called prison overcrowding.

The Civil War prison camps were very important in the Civil War because they were responsible for claiming thousands of lives from both sides. What were these prison camps used in the Civil War? They were places where each side would keep most of their Prisoners of War, or more commonly known as P.O.W.’s, incarcerated. The camps were usually coastal fortifications, old buildings, existing jails, or barracks enclosed with high fences. Conditions at these camps were very harsh and the mortality rate, or the chance you have of getting out alive, was on average 27%. There were more than 150 prison camps established throughout the Civil War. They were all filled way past their capacity limits so inmates were very crowded with very little provisions and surrounded by disease. Three infamous prison camps are the Union’s Fort Delaware, Elmira Prison in New York, and Camp Sumter or Andersonville Prison. An estimated 56,000 men perished in prison camps during the Civil War. (National Geographic Society)