With more than 2.3 million people locked away in our prisons, the system under which these are run is a major concern of society. A well-functioning incarceration system with motives of keeping citizens safe is key to maintaining peace and order in society. Correspondingly, a nation with a malfunctioning executive branch driven solely by economic greed is bound to fail the challenges of maintaining a safe and favorable environment. This is the state in which our nation’s prison system lies, in the hands of entrepreneurs whose only incentive is profit. The incarceration system in the United States has inflicted much damage on societal well-being, caused by privatization of prisons, war on drugs, and overcrowding of prison cells.
Determinate sentences involve sentences that have a fixed or flat time (Jirard, 2009). Determinate sentences play a large part in the increasing number of individuals in prison, which, as you can imagine, puts more strain on prisons financially. In the past two decades, we have become increasingly “tough on crime” which has helped to decrease crime to a certain extent. According to an article in the New York Times (2008), the US has fewer than five percent of the entire world’s population, but almost twenty five percent of the world’s prisoners (Liptak & , 2008). 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.
Since 1992, the United States crime rates have decreased and started to keep a steady rate from 2000. The types of crimes that usually occur in New York are violent crimes and property crimes. “Crime in New York City was high in the 1980s during the Mayor Edward I. Koch years, as the crack epidemic hit New York City, and peaked in 1990,[2] the first year of Mayor David Dinkins' administration (1990–1994). (During the administration of Mayor Rudolph Giuliani (1994–2002),” (Roughead, William, and W. N. Roughead. Classic Crimes ) Everyone sees this state as dangerous because of the crimes that occur there.
Crime in America Liam C. Burke Bellevue University Abstract Crime in America has declined substantially since the 1990’s. Scholars, criminologists, sociologists, scientists and economists all have explanations for the trend. This paper will examine several theories to try and see a correlation and consensus on what has led to this decline. Crime in America Crime in America has continued to decline. Homicide is used as a benchmark for crime trends because it is the most accurately measured and most serious crime.
Prison Industrial Complex Today in the United States we are seeing a change in state of incarceration, according to prisonpolicy.org, since 2010 be have seen the prisoners released exceed prison admissions. This in fact is a major transformation because since 1977 releases have not exceeded admissions. One can view this in a positive aspect by thinking that the United States has finally started shifting their policies away from this asinine system of incarceration but in fact this may only be ploy to systematize a greater portion of our population. Even though release rates have grown, the United States still imprisons the highest percentage of its population. So in actuality, today, we are institutionalizing the greatest number of citizens in our history.
CRIMINOLOGY - Freakonomics On Crime – Crimes according to Steven D. Levitt In this video, reasons why criminality is going down are given. Experts give several reasons, which are: * Harsher sentences * Crack decrease * Police increase, new methods, gun control, strong economy * Abortion Levitt based his research on economic data in order to proof that these reasons were not totally right. He shows that harsher sentences are responsible for 30% of the crime reduction, as two million Americans are in jail. Changes in crack market represents 15% of the crime reduction but this is not due to the “disappearance” of crack. It is actually because of the price of crack and its generated profits that crime goes back.
One must note that both of these generations grew up under Ceausescu's rule. The chapter then turns to the major, unexpected drop in crime throughout the US in the 1980's. The authors aim to show how conventional answers are not necessarily the strongest by analyzing various explanations, including increased policing, a stronger economy, and the decline of the crack cocaine market.
Much of the argument over stop and frisk lies in numbers.” For instance, the NYPD says its policy has led to a falling murder rate and more gun seizures, with homicides down 21 percent this year and the number of illicit guns seized up 31 percent from last year”(Huffington post). If this tactic results in this much of a drop in homicides and an increase of thirty one percent in illicit guns seized, why not use it. This tactic obviously helps keep the streets a little safer. Most if not all cities that imply stop and frisk experience a dramatic drop in crime rate. “The reality is that crime has gone way down in New York City and that stop and frisk has certainly contributed to it.
These monsters have pushed the marijuana, heroin, LSD /PCP, cocaine, crack, and now the meth epidemics. In 2008, the White House released the ADAM II annual which reported, “Methamphetamine remains primarily a regional phenomenon. In Sacramento and Portland 35 and 15% percent of arrestees respectively test positive in 2008 for meth…Meth positives are lowest in New York (less than 1%)New York, Atlanta, Chicago and Charlotte and only slightly higher in (2-3%) in Denver, Indianapolis, Washington DC and Minneapolis. The practice of injecting methamphetamine is most common in Portland (32% injected at last use), but less common elsewhere.” (Cohen, et al.,
Since the mid-1970s, the prison population in the nation’s largest state has risen by more than 750%, from about 20,000 to more than 160,000 (Equal Justice Initiative, 2010). California’s prison system is among one of the worst in the system and part of it is due to their adaptation of their “Three Strikes” laws. The laws are harsh and the criminals, especially the ones already having two strikes don’t seem to care about the seriousness of committing crimes. California’s prisons, 33 total, are operating at almost twice their design capacity. Overcrowding is a very serious issue that worries the state officials such as Governor Schwarzenegger.