This legacy of discrimination in U.S. drug policy amplifies the burgeoning gap in opportunities available to White youth and youth of color. To correct this discrepancy policies must be enacted that make education a priority over incarceration. Americans are reinforced to believe that individuals are largely in control of their own destiny. We are told that hard work, sacrifice, and personal effort, determines what happens to us. The fundamental institutions of the American society function unfairly, restricting access and opportunity for millions of people.
Secondly overcrowded prisons have an impact on rehabilitation programmes which potentially could be a reason for the high rate of reoffending in the UK. Finally the essay will discuss the crisis of the whole criminal justice system as the high volume of prisoners could be an indication of a wider crisis in The Criminal Justice System in England and Wales. At present it is estimated that crime and criminality costs UK society approximately £35 billion per year and currently the government spends approximately half of it on police services 2009/10 and fifth on courts dealing with the issue, of this money only £4.6 billion is spent on prisons (Ministry Of Justice, 2010). As the prison population is rise one of the main reasons for the crisis is the lack of availability of space. It has been argued that the penal system in England and Wales needs to become less punitive, more tolerant and successful (Scott , 2008) .
The number of youth entering the juvenile and criminal justice systems is increasing. Juvenile justice systems are breaking away from traditional rehabilitative goals of the juvenile courts. They are favoring more punitive approaches to juvenile crime. This is shown by the increase of zero tolerance policies, efforts to try juveniles as adults, mandatory minimum sentences, and efforts to get rid of juvenile court systems entirely. According to the Census of Juveniles in Residential placement, in 2006 there were approximately 92,854 adjudicated juveniles in residential placement in the United States.
In Chapter one, ‘Crime Control in America,” Rieman suggests that the criminal justice system has been designed to fail. Although there has been a slight decrease in crime in the more recent years, more specifically since 1992 the overall crime rates are declining; however a review of the criminal justice literature proves that prisons and police played quite a limited role in the national crime decline. He started off discussing the “Tough on crime” policies in which led to the largest prison expansion the U.S has ever known[i]. From 1980 to 2000, the U.S. built more prisons then it had in all of its history,[ii] creating what has been called an incarceration binge, mass incarceration, hyper incarceration, and a Plaque of Prisons. [iii] Rieman went through our history of recent Presidents, and there multiple failed policies they out forth in order to fight the war on crime.
However, some experts believe the rates have declined because the baby boomer generations are aging, so the percentage of young adults has declined. Some believe that the tougher or harsher sentences for crimes are a cause and there is evidence of this based on the increased prison populations. According to "Where Have All The Burglars Gone?" (2013), "Could more criminals being locked up be the answer? The number of people behind bars has grown substantially in many countries over the past 20 years.” (para.
Decrease in Juvenile Crime In 2001, according to the FBI, juveniles accounted for 17% of all arrests and 15% of all violent crime arrests (Snyder, 2003). In the late 1980s, juvenile violent crime arrest had a substantial growth then peaked in 1994. However, between 1994 and 2001, the juvenile arrest rate for Violent Crime Index fell 44% and as a result, the juvenile Violent Crime Index arrest rate was the lowest since 1983 (Snyder, 2003). Furthermore, in 2001, the rate of juvenile arrests for Violent Crime Index offenses that included forcible rape, robbery, aggravated assault and murder declined for the seventh consecutive year. The juvenile arrest rate for each of these offenses has been declining steadily since the mid-1990s; for murder, the rate fell 70% and manslaughter arrest rate fell 40% from its 1993 peak through 2001.
According to a project run by The Huffington Post, 40% of juvenile offenders sent to private prisons on account of drug related crimes are arrested and convicted of harsher crimes in less than a year from their release (Kirkham). Moreover, the concept of combating drugs with the threat of imprisonment is counterproductive. Imprisoning low level drug-dealers for long periods of time creates a gaping void in the market, quickly replaced by desperate individuals wanting to generate an income, and the number of potential “criminals” skyrockets. Thus, by locking away non-violent offenders with such long sentences, the incarceration boom is being promoted, and wrecking societal
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. The hyper-incarceration statistics for African-American males are much worse. We incarcerate one in nine African-Americans between the ages of 20 and 34. In 2003, it was calculated that "At current levels of incarceration newborn black males in this country have a greater than a 1 in 4 chance of going to prison during their lifetimes, while Hispanic males have a 1 in 6 chance, and white males have a 1 in 23 chance of serving time." By 2007, just four years later, the U.S. Department of Justice
Youth Violence in Schools American InterContinental University Abstract During this paper, I will discuss youth violence in schools, and how the media has portrayed it. I will focus on the urban schools since it has the bulk of stigmatism resulting from public opponents with who placed blame on the parents opposed to the type of community these children are forced to be a part of. In addition, there is Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), which is the cause of many of these youths acting out. lastly, acknowledging the social groups and parents who are trying to aid with being positive in fighting those stigmas and obstacles by educating them and giving them different types of avenues to spend their time. Violence in Schools I chose Youth Violence in Schools as the topic for my post.
However, when a child engages in criminal activity the degree of the sentence received should coincide with offense .The central emphasis of this content is to illustrate the effects of retribution by holding the juvenile justice system responsible for precisely applying the appropriate sanctions toward deserving individuals. All through history, mischievous children who have gotten in trouble have been confronted with extreme reprimands. Over the last twenty years juvenile violent crime has escalated almost twice as quickly as that of adults. The rate at which juveniles were arrested for violent crimes rose 79 percent between 1978 and 1993, almost three times the increase over that time period for adults. The legal term juvenile delinquent was generated so that young offenders could steer clear of the humiliation of being labeled in officially authorized court documents as criminals.