Pros And Cons Of The United States Correctional System

Just imagine the city of Houston being populated with nothing but prisoners. This is how badly the prison system has gotten overcrowded since the 1980's, and it is only going to get worse. Overpopulation has affected the lives of prisoners inside and outside of prison with a plethora of reasons that cause more harm than good. The only way to solve these problems is to reform the programs inside prisons and to reform the laws in the justice system. Prison reform is needed in the current rehabilitation programs inside of prison since little effort is used to implement a correct recovery for the convicted.

Prison reform has been an ongoing topic in the history of America, and has gone through many changes in America's past. Mixed feelings have been persevered on the status of implementing these prison reform programs, with little getting done, and whether it is the right thing to do to help those who have committed a crime. Many criminal justice experts have viewed imprisonment as a way to improve oneself and maintain that people in prison come out changed for the better (encyclopedia.com, 2007). In the colonial days, American prisons were utilized to brutally punish individuals, creating a gruesome experience for the prisoners in an attempt to make them rectify their behavior and fear a return to prison (encyclopedia.com, 2007). This practice may have worked 200 years ago, but as the world has grown more complex, time has proven that fear alone does not prevent recidivism.

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.

Another issue that the American prison systems were facing was their constant practice of locking away mentally ill individuals to very long prison sentences that only seriously worsened their conditions, and even made their chances of overcoming mental illness, nearly impossible. Even medications that were prescribed to these individuals made them suffer serious and sometimes even worse, side effects. Although some states banned the high rates of mentally ill individuals to prisons, this only meant they were more targeted and thrown in jail for petty offenses by police. Many prisons do not have the resources, nor the skills needed to adequately and appropriately care for the mentally ill, therefore many of them suffer and even die from this

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.

Out of the countless systems that America has, the criminal justice system has the most complication. Many judges, lawyers, and even prisoners have views on how to improve the criminal justice system but, to be able to pin point the problems of the criminal justice system you must discern what the causes are. Most would say that the problem with the prison system is the overcrowding. A few says the sentencing causes chaos in the criminal justice system. I believe that one or the main problem with the criminal justice system is the sentencing.

Incarcerated Americans face many challenges when they attempt to re-enter society. Inmates that are released from prison have no money, no job, and in many cases, no place to live. On top of these challenges former inmates face, they must also navigate the same pressures and temptations that landed them in the American prison system in the first place. To make matters worse, these ex-offenders are typically released into the same environment that they left when they were originally incarcerated, adding to the dangers of these temptations. The key elements that create a successful reentry into society post incarceration include; finding and keeping a solid, decent paying job, finding a safe place to live, preferably away from the dangers

A shift is happening in America. The pendulum is swinging from the ideals of get tough and mass incarceration. The swing has both positive and negative affects on the prison system. On the plus side, prison populations are decreasing. By shifting away from incarcerating any who break the law, there are fewer drug dealers and fewer violent offenders in the system.

Rehabilitation: Rehabilitation is the way toward helping an individual accomplish the most abnormal amount of capacity, freedom, and personal satisfaction conceivable. Rehabilitation does not switch or fix the harm brought about by sickness or injury, but instead reestablishes the person to ideal wellbeing, working, and prosperity. Rehabilitation is the most significant ideological support for discipline, for only it advances the refining faith in the thought that offenders can be saved and not just punished. The rehabilitative perfect alone passes on the message that the state has a commitment to help the individuals who miss the mark concerning the benchmarks of conduct it has set. These individuals are frequently those with the best social impediments that have compelled them to an existence in wrongdoing in any case.

Best drug rehab facilities in the US brings life back to normal. Whether alcohol or drug habit is an incurable disease or a personal choice has been problem for years. Whatever the philosophy what's important is locating a drug treatment facility that provides effective answers to end addiction. In the very best form of medication and alcohol treatment patients are seen as making decisions to make use of alcohol and drugs because of some kind of problem in their life.

Incarceration has long been part of our corrections facilities in maintaining and holding criminals confined to themselves and harmless to the outside world. That’s not the exactly the way it is anymore, now they are creating treatment programs to rehabilitate people into better normal class citizens in prison because of the effects it has on prisoners in and outside the walls along with people they are associated with. For instance one article stated how in Germany they created state of the art treatment programs to help treat the criminals with their addictions. It was said to have great results in the treatments, but the program was very costly, so it was shut down. While another program in New York is trying to help the incarcerated fathers, by letting them portray the father

Prison Problems in the U.S. The United States have the biggest incarceration rate in the world. Our prisons are full of convicts, rapists, and murderers. One of our biggest problems are is that we don't have enough money too feed them and keep a roof over their heads. Another issue is the proportion of middle aged men in our country are either black or hispanic.

2.3 million people are currently incarcerated in the U.S. justice system. All of them, regardless of their offense, have been put behind bars to serve some amount of time. Trapped in small rooms with sharp corners and dull paint, they watch a lone flickering light in their cell as a meager source of entertainment. Thousands behind black rusted bars and enclosed bland courtyards, blithering about, only occasionally forced to do self-supporting such as laundry and cooking. The typical orange jumpsuits contrast with the muted walls and unvaried routine.