So in actuality, today, we are institutionalizing the greatest number of citizens in our history. Under this system our government can legally funnel the largest group of prisoners in of history through these institutions and systemize them. This product may be the agenda of our current system due to the fact that since we have the greatest number of offenders being supervised that ipso facto we have the greatest number of U.S. citizens that can have their rights legally taken away. Through policy, if government can legally take the rights of these citizens and institutionalize them what is stopping them from taking it
Recent reports have concluded that the United States has the highest incarceration rate throughout the world at 2.2 million inmates. This increase is causing major concerns for corrections statewide, as prisons are seriously overcrowded ("University Of Phoenix," 2003). Prison populations are steadily growing year by year since the 1980s. However, the reason for this increase is a result of the Sentencing Reforming Act of 1984 (“Seller, R. P.” 2011). Once this act was put into use there was a significant increase in the incarceration rate, which resulted in correctional staff becoming burdened and overworked as a result of the extreme overcrowding.
Reasons for growth in the State Prison system part of the over population in prison has been merited to the changes in sentencing practices. The sentencing practices are part of the harsh constraints on judges and parole individuals, there are required to examine each individual case and their own special circumstances. 1980 was the large increase in incarceration; some say is based on the war on drugs and trafficking of illegal drugs to the United States. Poverty Poverty has many ways of dealing with the prison growth, there are more crime related issues than there are work, people try to get money easy and get themselves into a bigger hole. The profiling of people who have been incarcerated is one of the main reasons why most employers won’t hire an individual, therefore this people do not feel welcome in society and end up going back to prison, because they feel safer with food and
RUNNING HEAD: THE ISSUES 1 The Issues of Overcrowding in Prisons By Barbarito Capote ENGL107-1203B English Composition 2 July 29, 2012 RUNNING HEAD: THE ISSUES 2 Outline: I. Intro a. Overcrowding in prisons a huge issue i. Not enough prisons to reduce overcrowding b. Solutions to prison overcrowding c. Prisons as an end result have suffered from overcrowding causing higher suicide rates as well as increased diseases, sharing of beds and toilets, etc. Because of this overcrowding of prisons is a big issue.
Medicaid, Social Services, CPS, law enforcement are all affected on a larger scale. Financial cost to the United States is growing at alarming rates, where we have to look at meth addiction as a nation. Meth use in pregnancy is becoming more common, the physical effects on both mother and baby are increasing the costs in healthcare with lengthy stays in the neonatal departments. Providing care to addicted newborns doesn’t stop in the hospital. CPS and Social Services have an ongoing role in protecting these children through foster care placement and adoption placement that is lengthy.
In the course of a year, there are 12 million admissions to secure facilities. Enough people are admitted to prisons and jails every two days to fill the New Orleans Superdome to capacity. The administrative manning and cost to house and provide care for prisoners has skyrocketed. Prisons are so overcrowded that prisoners are being released early to provide for more serious offenders. This increase is largely due to added staffing levels, new prisoner programs and rights, care of the elderly, and less lenient laws.
These eye-popping numbers came about for many reasons: mandatory minimum sentences, three-strikes legislation, illegal drugs, gangs, immorality in all its modern forms, the war on drugs, the decline of marriage and families, high rates of recidivism, incarceration of the mentally ill, the decline of capital punishment, problems with the criminal justice system and all the forces pushing tough crime policies. Difficult economic times focus attention on the increasing costs of keeping all these people - 93% of them men - behind bars. Each prisoner costs about $32,000 per year, and the average prisoner does little to offset the cost of confinement. The social costs may be even higher. Breadwinners are lost, families destroyed, more kids grow up without fathers or mothers, welfare costs increase, the entire sex ratio is thrown out of balance and prisoners face grim prospects when released.
Mariah Mathews CRJ 102 Dec 10, 2013 Prison Overcrowding Introduction Prison overcrowding has become one of the major financial and controversial problems in the United States. Last year Governor Jerry Brown passed a bill that would move thousands of low-level state prisoners to county jails or give them early release on parole. California prisons have become extremely overcrowded since 2011, which is playing a huge role on the state’s deficit. The Bill is called AB 109 and also assures appropriate funding to all the facilities before the bill is to go into effect. The California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation defines the Bill as, “AB 109 allows non-violent, non-serious, and non-sex offenders to serve their sentence in
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. In this discussion, focus will be primarily on the issue as it involves state and federal prisons. Research and Discussion Overcrowding Versus Over Imprisonment Much of the literature on prison crowding focuses on the overall size and growth of inmate populations and correctional facilities as indicators that the United States builds prisons and incarcerates at far higher rates than most other countries. Data on prisons and prison populations to support such conclusions are usually drawn from two general sources. The most complete picture is found in the annual reports and on the Websites of the Federal Bureau of Prisons and many individual state departments of corrections (Hough,Solomon,2008).
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.