In fact the U.S.’s rate of incarceration is 455 people per every 100,000 people (Smolowe, 1994). To put that in perspective, it is the highest rate of incarceration compared to any other country in the world. Even South Africa, our close second, only imprisons 311 people per ever 100,000 (Smolowe, 1994). Due to the harsh punishment of imprisonment for even the most minor of crimes, the United States has been facing a difficult issue of overcrowding in our prisons. Overcrowding in prisons is linked to several different causes, but the overall ignition of the overcrowding links specifically to the “War on Drugs” that began in the 1970’s (“What Causes Overcrowding,” 2011).
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.
Topic: Overcrowding in prison General Purpose: To Persuade/Visual Aid Specific Purpose: The overcrowding of prisoner has been a issue since the early 1700 century, and as of March 1, 2012 United State currently has the world’s largest prison population of 2.2 million people incarcerated. Stated by the Sentencing Project, a research and advocacy for reform. Introduction: But before I start, I want to make it clear this is not a position offering sympathy to the criminals locked-up. Our judicial-system convicts people that need to be and deserve to be taken away from the general population and imprisoned .However, overcrowding is perhaps one of the biggest challenges facing the American prison system. Prison became the biggest profit making industry in this country.
Correctional Systems Jail is a holding facility for those serving a year or less. Various problems persist in jails, which include the lack of funds, lack of resources, and overcrowding. According to the AMS website (2009), The United States imprison more people than any other nation in the world and are experiencing near-crisis levels of overcrowding. With the rising crime rates and the difficulty in recruiting personnel’s, makes an almost impossible situation. Each of the mention problems go hand-in-hand because of the lack of funds, jails are not able to upgrade to a bigger facility.
Policy Development Paper Vance Reed CJA/464 Criminal Justice Policy Analysis 04/22/2012 Thomas McGrath Abstract Overcrowded prisons have been on an up rise for the last two decades. Overcrowded prisons are blamed for a number of reasons, such as the war on drugs, and the Three Strikes law, and the new laws regarding drugs crimes. Financially speaking, the cost is rising every year, even with new prisons and remodeling the population is steady rising. Crime peaked in the early 1990’s and this added to the high incarceration rates. Strangely enough, though the crime rate is now on a downward slope the overpopulated prisons are still increasing.
The financial of housing inmates isn’t just on the shoulders of the state government, it’s on American citizens as well. The average cost to house one inmate a year is too astronomical to continue with overcrowded prisons. It is costing billions in state government money. It has tied up the courts time, increased courtroom actors caseloads as well as begin to risky for the lives of correction professionals. However, changes have been made to correct the issue and results have been promising.
The Field Of Corrections By: Tony Workman 1 of every 133 Americans is in jail or prison, even though the prison population has dropped in 20 states, that is roughly 2.3 million people behind bars. There is a huge demand right now for corrections officers, and is projected to increase over the next five years. It is a physical and mentally demanding job and needs specialized training, but it is also a very rewarding profession. Correctional officers, also known as detention officers when they work in pretrial detention facilities, are responsible for overseeing individuals who have been arrested and are awaiting trial or who have been convicted of a crime and sentenced to serve time in a jail, reformatory, or penitentiary. The jail population
A contributing factor could be that there are growing numbers of terrorists, gangs, and other violent prisoners the government is now housing. ADMAX, a supermax prison the federal government has provided, holds many of the greatest threats to the American ways. People like Zacarias Moussaoui, Al Qaeda terrorist; Theodore Kaczynski, the Unabomber; Terry Nichols, accomplice in Oklahoma City bombing; and Richard Reid, Islamic shoe bomber are all housed in this institution. Another growing cause of prison population is poverty. During the last two decades, there has been a gap in America between the lifestyles of those who grew up poor and those who didn’t.
According to reuters.com the death penalty in California is the most expensive and the least effective. It has 726 inmates on death row yet the last time they executed one was 6 years ago. This puts a financial burden on this state. A 2011 study by Ninth Court of Appeals said the death penalty has cost the state $4 billion since 1978. If California would have gotten rid of the death penalty long ago such money would not have been spent, saving the state millions of dollars.
Juveniles and Social Justice Linda Buch Ashford University CRJ 422 Instructor J. Kerr March 3, 2014 Juveniles and Social Justice Drug use has been a major concern in American society for as long as our country has existed and is thought to be what has led to the many unfolding issues of the now overcrowded prison population in America. In 1980, there were “41,000 people in jails and prisons for drug offences, but by 2012 the number had risen to 507,000” (Federal Bureau of Prisons, 2013). Why the rise in prison population? President Richard Nixon's declaration of a "war on drugs", a war that thus far has cost roughly a trillion dollars and has engendered little to no effect on the supply of or demand for drugs in the Cumulated