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.
Education vs. Incarceration In today’s society our minority youth are lacking their education because of poor guidance, poverty, and poor decision making. Today every decision they may will have an impact on them for the rest of their lives. Our youth are caught in crossfire of war on drugs and are prosecuted, incarcerated and denied access to education opportunities. The drug war has resulted in the institutionalized persecution of Black, Latino, and Native American young people. More and more young minority men and women are being ushered into the criminal justice system under the guise of fighting drugs.
At the turn of the century, the Department of Health and Human Services stated almost fifty percent of the American population received the aid needed (Pimpare). Many people were kicked to the streets in cities large and small reaching overwhelming poverty rates all over the country. Welfare reform even today still has much more reforming and monitoring to be done if we ever hope to recover and improve our country’s debt in the years to
The demographic group most affected by the war on drugs and the incarceration boom are the juveniles. Youth who turn to drugs and alcohol abuse are faced with harsh reality at YSI Facilities, another branch of the private prison industry. Rather than being charged with fines appropriate to their offenses and being sent to rehabilitation or other forms of drug treatment, non-violent offenders are locked away with long, harsh sentences. This profit-driven war on drugs and other substance abuse ruins the lives of the inmates, turning them into harder criminals by exposing them to such environments. 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).
62% of local jail inmates are awaiting trial. The cost of medical care for inmates grows by 10% annually. High rates of incarceration are due to sentence length. The United States incarcerates a large number of non-violent and victimless offenders. 50% of all prisoners are non-violent offenders, and 20% are drug related offenders.
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.
It also backs up my other sources with the same research results; by removing the sentencing discretion of judges, and replacing it with mandatory jail sentences, we are sending more offenders to prison instead of programs designed to rehabilitate. Information in this article also supports my argument that mandatory laws violate the Constitution. Taking power away from judges is a violation of the 10th amendment “separation of powers.” As a result, our prison population has quadrupled and is filled with the wrong people. Mandatory sentencing applies so broadly that they sweep minor criminals and drug users along with the major ones, “drug kingpins,” who are the real targets of the statutes. Bender, David L. “America’s Prisons Opposing Viewpoints”4thed.Minnesota.
For example, here in Washington State due to the budget cut, more of the education programs have been taken out. This issue leaves inmates without anything to do and the inmate now have only minimum training working in kitchen and maintenance jobs which due to background check most inmates cannot get a job after they get out . There is minimum scholarship offered to inmates who need to pursuit their education. Also drugs education programs have been decreased because of the budget cut. Even DOSA (Drug Offender Sentencing Act) which says they get half time upon completion of drug counseling, most inmates are unable to complete.
Overcrowding has become a major issue in the United States mainly because nonviolent drug addicted offenders are repeating behaviors and ending up in jail. As a result, criminals are receiving early releases, violence in the institutions is on the rise, and non-violent prisoners are not receiving the rehabilitation that they need. The elimination of federal parole and
Divorce is very common in our current society. All across the world people are accepting divorce in society and it continues to play a role in our society. Starting in the 1960s divorce started to become a more prevalent problem in the United States. The number of divorces per 1000 people, also known as the divorce rate, doubled from a rate of 2.6 to 5.4 between the 1950s and 1980s (Mooney, Knox, & Schacht, 2007). In 1990, when the divorce rate was 4.7, there were 1,182,000 divorces in the United States (Births, Deaths, Marriages, & Divorces, 2006).