Jails tend to be considered the lowest security confinement. Jails play a bigger role in the criminal justice system than most people think. A prison does not come in to play until after an offender is sentenced. However, the jail will be used throughout the whole criminal justice process up to sentencing and sometimes after sentencing. Jails are used in the beginning of the criminal justice process to house suspects that are arrested for crimes.
Early Correctional Institutions Dating back to the medieval times into the modern era, the typical correctional facilities was the gaol. These were small town institutions mainly used for detention and holding criminals until court (Foster, 2006). Gaols ranged in size, from small rooms to the size of a castle. Inmates were mixed together; men with women, sane with the insane, young boys with young girls in filth, disease, and malnourishment (Foster, 2006). Gaols operated on a fee system, which charges the prisoners a daily fee; this was how the sheriffs who operated the system made their money.
Although there are various ways of describing jail facilities, such as: correctional center, detention facility, house of correction, and prison they all have common roles (Richard P. Seiter (2011)). Jails detain many types of offenders, including the following: inmates with short sentences, juveniles waiting to be transferred to juvenile corrections, people mentally ill and waiting to go to mental health facilities, people awaiting arraignment, trial, conviction, or sentencing, people who violate bail bond, parole, probation, inmates who are waiting to be transferred to federal, state, and people detain on behalf of the military, for protective custody, contempt’s, and for court witnesses (Richard P. Seiter (2011)). As of 2008, there were a total of 312 private jails and prisons operating in the United States (Richard P. Seiter (2011)). In 2008 the incarceration rate was extremely high; the local jails had a total of 785,556 inmates (Richard P. Seiter (2011)). The incarceration rate is determined by the number of people per 100,000 U.S. citizens who are incarcerated either in jail or prison.
Today’s prison systems have proven to be a collection of diverse individuals, some brilliant, some talented and some possessing sets of skills uncommon to even the most successful of free individuals. It is with such a diverse prison culture that rehabilitation has evolved into a much different element of American incarceration. With the presence of corrections based education, vocation, and work programs, prisoners are treated as individuals with potential, optimistic futures and most importantly, individuals who still have Eighth Amendment rights. It can be said that to be incarcerated in prison with no outlets to develop or improve intelligence, acquire skills, and reach ones potential is in a way “cruel and unusual punishment”. With the possibility to pursue education within prison walls, prisoners are provided the opportunity to develop personally as well as intellectually.
Does imprisonment fulfil those aims and purposes? Studies worldwide have shown that imprisonment does not work in terms of stated objectives. The stated objectives are to reform the criminal. In the majority of cases, the prison population is largely made up of re offenders. Donna King (Smart Justice) described her experience in jail as “Each prison sentence I went through, my crimes got bigger.
One of the problems the prisoners face coming out of prison is finding employment. Lets just think about this for a few minutes. What is usually one of the first main questions on a job application? Have you ever been convicted of a felony or misdemeanor? These are the words that ex-convicts fear and heres why.
Prison Overcrowding Angela Thompson Trident Technical College Prison Overcrowding Introduction Discussions of overcrowding frequently merge concerns about state and federal prisons together with municipal and county jails, which in states such as Pennsylvania, are confusingly referred to as county prisons. With the exception of Alaska, Hawaii, and a small number of north-eastern states that operate integrated jail/prison systems, state and federal prisons or penitentiaries house exclusively sentenced felons, usually committed for a minimum of one year. Jails typically holds varying proportions of felons and misdemeanants sentenced to less than one year. However, they also house pre-trial detainees who have not yet been convicted but are held pending prosecution and disposition of their cases, usually because they have not been able to secure pretrial release by posting bail. Because the extent of crowding, along with the reasons, consequences, and potential remedies can vary considerably depending upon whether the focus is on prisons versus jails, it is important to separate the two.
The holding cell was so boring, cozy, very well lit and the bed was very uncomfortable from the one I was use to laying in at my house, which made it hard for me to go to sleep. The food was terrible and unsatisfying it had no season even the drink was unflavorable and had an unpleasant smell. The smell in the jail was unpleasant also because other inmates wasn’t grooming and washing their bodies like they suppose to have been doing. The guards was huge and so were some of the other inmates I saw passing by my cell and jail was so noisy and loud because of the guards and inmates yelling and screaming all they and night at one another. I figured that the jail was filthy and filled with bacteria because of the different racist and inmates coming and going, so I was afraid to touch anything because I didn’t want to become seriously ill.
Sigfried McGee CRJ 303 Corrections Gary Gonzales Prison Life September, 2011 I. Intro: As many of us find it hard to cope with the real world, inmates is struggling to live from day to day basic. A. Prison Life B. Thesis statement: The implementation of; Prison improvement program has made it possible for prison to preserve the basic human rights of inmates. I.
People don’t just end up in prison, in order to be incarcerated a person needs to be accused of a crime. Then they are booked, put on trial and convicted by a jury. Once this process is finished the criminal will be given a sentence that is to be carried out in prison. Over the years, the lives inmates have led in prisons have changed drastically. Prisons haven’t always been what we see today.