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).
There are many laws that come into play with the end result being less crime. They are intended to make punishments harsher for offenders with the hopes that the offender will not repeat crimes. The Habitual Felon Act was developed in order to increase sentencing time for the repeat offenders. This was considered to be a ""tough on crime" legislation that was adopted by the North Carolina General Assemble in the early 1990s" (Young). The law was also adapted in order to get more violent individuals off of the street, instead it filled the prisons with nonviolent, low priority felons.
In some states, the individual must be convicted of two serious felonies for the three strikes law to apply, while in others any felonies count towards the third strike. Critics of the three strike law express many strong arguments against their harsh legal statute. Our society has ultimately had an issue with the three strikes law. Some people have said that the law “destroys the flexibility of the courts and the judge, it is unjust in certain conditions, and it adds more criminals to an already crowded and expensive criminal system”
Prisons are consistently overflowing with repeat offenders and minor criminals. In addition to repeat offenders and perpetrators of minor crimes clogging up the system, the cost of keeping a prisoner is astronomical compared to the author’s suggested form of punishment. However, I do see the need for prisons, or someplace comparable, to keep the most violent criminals out of society. I believe Moskos should have stated hard facts regarding the ineffectiveness of prisons and given pertinent details about the productive use of corporal punishment. I’m not sure there are any “appropriate” forms of punishment.
The second factor that needs to be considered is the routine the inmates faced on a day to day basis and the outcome of the rehabilitation. Prior to Pentonville, prisons were used as holding bays for those on death row and debtors, due to prisons being unfeasible for long term incarceration. Prisons were corrupt environments were ‘prisoners were in the company of criminals of every class and degree’ . Subsequently it can be claimed that having ‘passed time, he returns a greater adept in crime, with a wider acquaintance among criminals’ . During the time of the report the Lords Select Committee had promoted the silent system which had been adopted at Wakefield Goal and Coldbath fields in 1834.
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
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.
I personally believe that American prisons can be quite harsh when it comes down to how the prisoners are treated. A lot of factors come in to play when you look at the conditions of our prison systems. Such factors are population, cleanliness, the rules of the prison, and most importantly the severity of the punishments. The first thing I am going to discuss is the population. Ever since the populations of prisons have gradually increased over 2 million inmates, many prisons are becoming overcrowded.
The Advantages of Becoming a Surveillance Society by Rey A. Oquendo Senior Seminar in Criminal Justice Professor Loyal G. Evans 18 July 2010 Introduction Are we becoming a surveillance society? In a society fixated with punishing criminals with severity a new trend is taking the place of traditional prison or jail terms; electronic monitoring (EM). We still want to see our criminals receive the punishment they deserve for committing crimes. The problem we have is that our jails and prisons are so overcrowded that there is no room to house everyone inside. This is where electronic monitoring comes into play.
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