There is no doubt that here in America we are dealing with one of the greatest economic downfalls. It is said that 46.2 million Americans are now living in poverty. This is due to the shrinking number of jobs, the rise of the working poor, the dependency on the government is raising, health cost (the biggest threat of all) are crippling American families, and more and more children, our nations future, are living in poverty or close to poverty. Due to the recession in America people are forced to do what is necessary in order to survive. For many businesses and companies one of the easiest ways to save money has been by reducing the number of employees.
With the economy in the shape it is, it makes those full-time jobs seem like only part-time jobs. “We are spending more money fighting poverty than ever before, yet poverty is up,” said Michael D. Tanner, a senior fellow at the Cato Institute. “Clearly we are doing something wrong.”( Poverty Stats Show the Damage) Specialists say the government needs to rethink their calculations of poverty. According to Carol Morello’s article, “Poverty Stats Show the Damage,” about 44 million Americans (one in seven) lived in homes at the poverty level. For a family of four that level is $22,000 annually or less.
The Working Poor: Invisible in America, by David K. Shipler, Poverty is an endless and vicious cycle. It stops at nothing to preserve itself. It affects around 1.3 Billion people and most likely will never stop. There are many reasons for poverty being hard to end. Once you are in poverty there really is no way out.
Even though many new prisons have been built throughout the nation during the past 20 years to accommodate the growing number of inmates, prison overcrowding is still very much a reality in many jurisdictions. There are many problems that occur from overcrowded prisons. First, according to David Beck-Brown of the San Diego Union-Tribune, it is less expensive to check into a Motel 6 and to eat out than to house an inmate in a California prison. It costs approximately $62.05 to house a state or federal prisoner for one day. The annual cost of incarcerating one inmate is over $22,000 and rising.
Since the low class poor people are not usually educated, they often easily “pushed” into the crimes by the high class people. Usually the upper class people are invisible and at the end the poor is the ones who get blamed. Certainly the rich benefit more than the poor. That has always and will always be the case in every society the world has known. Very often the rich push the poor by removing workers rights, by limiting corporate liability, by instigating war.
Each day, 963 million people go hungry. Although there are people in poverty in the United States and in other developed countries, those living in developing countries are at greater risk for what has been called absolute poverty, (a condition where a person does not have the minimum amount of income needed to meet the minimum requirements for one or more basic living needs over an extended period of time). Women and Children constitute the majority of impoverished people across the globe. As Americans and Europeans it is in our best interest to help poor people escape poverty and to help hungry people escape hunger, Poverty is a silent killer, (Dr. Pinstrup-Andersen). The United Nation Children's Fund (UNICEF) figures show that 25,000 children die each day from poverty alone.
Final Paper Justin C Lee SOC305 Crime and Society Prof. Ekaterina Gorislavsky October 10, 2014 Overpopulation of our Prisons Prison overcrowding has become a very serious issue within the United States. Throughout the years numbers have grown at an alarming rate and each day our prisons become more and more unstable. Rates are growing for a number of reasons. More people are becoming incarcerated because of changes and improvements to the laws as well as the increase in law enforcement tactics to take crime off the streets. With these improvements comes the fact that our prisons are too small for the amount of people that are being put in jail, this includes county, state, as well as federal.
Dealing with Geriatric Inmates Abstract Elderly or geriatric prisoners are creating problems for correctional facilities, legislators, as well as state and federal budgets. From 1992 to January 1, 2001, the number of inmates age 50 and older jumped from 41, 586 to 113,358 (Camp & Camp, 1992 – 2001). The aging inmate population in the United States’ federal and state prisons is creating a heavy burden on government resources and budgets. Governments are paying more money to maintain the health and treatment of elderly individuals as opposed to younger inmates. This steady rise in the age of inmates incarcerated throughout the United States can be traced back to an increasing crime rate through the 1980’s and early 1990’s and the “get tough” response by legislating bodies and law enforcement.
A lack of affordable housing has contributed to homelessness. The loss of affordable housing puts a great number of people at risk of homelessness. The lack of affordable housing has led to high rent burdens (rents which absorb a high proportion of income), overcrowding, and substandard housing. These phenomena’s, in turn, have not only forced many people to become homeless; they have put a large and growing number of people at risk of becoming homeless. Excessive waiting lists for public housing mean that people must remain in shelters or inadequate housing arrangements longer.
More stress, chaos, and contact among inmates and staff. I believe this is a bad bill because of the increase in expenses. It is about $25,000 dollars to house one inmate per year. Just think about how much it will cost Government officials to house beyond over populated prisons. For example, if the maximum prison term for armed robbery is 15 years and that conviction is doubled, the city has to pay for an extra 15 years of housing to inmates.