The author of the article goes on to say that people in the US are sentenced to do time for crimes that would not produce such a sentence in other countries. According to another article in the New York Times (2008), states spend close to ten percent of their budget on corrections (Liptak &, 2008). In 2007 alone, states spend close to $45 million tax dollars. Not only is simply housing an inmate costly, but healthcare also provides a financial burden. In 1998, the states paid a little over seven dollars a day per inmate for healthcare (Kinsella, 2004).
Everyone in society plays a particular role. Social justice advocates might be concerned about incarceration rates that show racial disproportions and a fiscally conservative taxpayer would also be worried about the cost of said “war on drugs.” State legislatures need new ideas and solutions to come out of the war on drugs, considering policy change is in their hands. The United States has one of the highest incarceration rates in the world. The inmate population grew considerably by 1,849 prisoners a week in 1996; that is 264 people a day. One out of every 155 U.S. residents has been behind bars, putting the United States only second to Russia and it’s per person rate of incarceration.
Bennett’s chapter against the legalization of drugs he speculates that the legalization of drugs would remove the criminal stigma that currently labels drug users. Bennett theorizes that a removal of this stigma would take with it the hesitation felt by the majority of people who see no positives in a life of crime. He is talking about every drug which one would agree that such a broad decriminalization would send our country into a downward spiral filled with addicted citizens barely able to function within society. The hard drugs that Bennett describes are in fact a danger to society such drugs like PCP, heroin or crack cocaine. However, he barely touches on the fact of marijuana alone.
If we look at the statistics alone we see in many areas we are already winning. According to the Uniform Crime Reports and Federal Bureau of Investigation arrests for drug law violations this year are expected to exceed the 1,663,582 arrests of 2009. Law enforcement made more arrests for drug abuse violations (an estimated 1.6 million arrests, or 13.0 percent of the total number of arrests) than for any other offense in 2009. Someone is arrested for violating a drug law every 19 seconds.3 The current Commissioner of the New York City Police Department Raymond Kelly said “If you look back in history, if you look back 20 years ago, we had about 25 million drug users in this country. They say that we are down below 13 million now.
Franklin Township Needs Assessment Elyse Kocylowskyi October 8, 2012 Franklin Township, NJ Franklin Township is the most populated municipality of Somerset County, containing 62,300 people, with a population density of 1,350 persons per square mile (Brandstetter, 2010). Franklin Township, to be hereafter called Franklin, not only has the largest population, it also has the fastest growing – with a rate 2.4 times higher than any other municipality, accounting for 43.9% of the total population growth in Somerset County between 2000 and 2010 (NJSDC, 2011). Money Magazine’s ranking of the ‘one-hundred best places to live’ in the US listed Franklin as the fifth best place to live in 2008, and the twenty-fifth best place to live for
The transportation sector has consistently accounted for more than half of total carbon emissions in the county. The water supply to the county is considered excellent quality. The county has large bodies of water on its east and west borders and several lakes posing a hazard for drowning. San Mateo County’s crime rate is among the lowest in the state. Violent crimes in the county have been steadily decreasing from 2,447 in 2005 to 2,072 in 2009.
In other words, do not be so strict in minor offenses. Another solution is to cut back most of the privatized prisons because they are more interested in making millions than running a decent facility. Perhaps the government should be very strict on these private entities and may be they will be more conformable. One option is to allow points for inmates once out on parole. If they get a job so many points will be added, and if they can stay on that job a selected term than they have proving trustworthiness.
In 2006, law enforcement agencies reported 1,337,365 arrests of persons under age 18. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, youth who are transferred from the juvenile court system to the adult criminal system are approximately 34% more likely than youth retained in the juvenile court system to be re-arrested for violent or other crime. Many youth who are held in adult jails have not even been convicted. On any given day, nearly 7,500 young people are locked up in adult jails. On any given
One in every ten Americans in the United States have some type of criminal record. In 2009 the incarceration rate for the United States was 743 per every 100,000 citizens. The only other industrialized nation in the world that even comes close to that rate is Russia with 627 prisoners for every 100,000 people. I think that our rate is so high not necessarily because we have so many people but more because of the fact that our justice system is much stricter than that of any other nation in the world. I think we are so much quicker to throw people in jail even for petty things such as minor drug charges.
This shows drug trafficking was recognized as a large problem over a century ago. With a better plan and more harsh consequences, drug trafficking can be under better control than it is today. “The position maintained by the United States, a drug-consuming country, was that the trade in dangerous drugs had to be prohibited and that narcotic drug supply should be eliminated at its source” (Keefer & Loayza, (2010), p. 88). This is still the goal for the United States today. Customs officers are expected to do their job and put a stop to the drug trafficking but the temptation of making some extra money may be extremely strong.