Reducing Prison Overcrowding In The United States

III. Literature Review
Prison overcrowding has been a global issue for many years. We can all attest to the fact that incarceration is said to be the main deterrent for individuals who have committed a criminal offense. The sole purpose of this literature review is to identify prospective policies that may assist Ohio with the reduction of their overcrowded prison population. My aimed is to identify four best practices that other states like New York, New Jersey, California and Massachusetts have been using as alternatives to prison hence reducing prison overcrowding.

The first best practice to consider to reduce Ohio’s prison population is the state of New York. In 1973, New York’s Governor, Nelson Rockefeller enacted the “Rockefeller Drug

In 2009, California was ordered by a federal court to reduce their overcrowded prison population by 138 percent. The state had a massive incarceration rate during the “tough on crime” era (Alternative to Incarceration in California, 2015). In 1994, California had enacted a Three Strike Law. This law allows for offenders who have been convicted of a serious felony to be sentence to a prison term twice as long if they had a prior conviction. If they had two or more prior convictions then they would be mandated to a sentence of 25 years to life (California Courts,

Office of Community Correction Centers (OCC) provides an alternative to probation through an intermediate intensive treatment program. This program is an enhancement to the traditional probation supervision. What this program does, it creates a more intensive correctional intervention. OCC has 18 network throughout the state that provides a thorough integrated services and sanctions such as substance abuse treatment, educational services, job development, life skills training and case management to participants. Participants had to report to treatment facilities several times for week for random drug testing, community services and programming. After completion of this intensive intermediate probation alternative, participant will then enter traditional probation supervision. (Massachusetts Court System, 2017). This has been helping the state save money, reducing the issue of prison overcrowding and have lowered the recidivism