American Correctional System Analysis

The American Correctional System has always been the eye of criminal justice. For many years’ prisons, crime, tax, and punishment has been ecstatic in the past and within the world we live in today. Crime rates increased tremendously through the 1970’s to 1990’s era, than begin to decrease from the early 1990’s to late 2000’s. The system of corrections has been around for over 225 years, from its beginning in 1790 to current 2015. Our justice system is the centerfold of our security as citizens of the American government and safe regards in private and public. The government is instilled with rules and regulations which every U.S. citizen is entitled to follow. These Bills of rights are constitutional to all 50 states in Southern America.

England continued to enforce capital punishment whereas in America they preferred corporal punishment, fines and confinement. After the Revolutionary War many large scaled penitentiaries were put in place so that criminals could reflect and hopefully reform upon the crimes they committed. However with the increase need for inexpensive labor, prisoners were forced into slave labor. In the early 1800’s community based programs such as probation and parole were introduced as an alternative to incarceration (Ortmeier, 2006, p.385). In 1870 the National Prison Association was created which later became the American Prison Association and eventually the American Correctional Association. These associations were created for assistance, setting of standards as well as correctional philosophy. These philosophies include; deterrence, retribution, incapacitation, rehabilitation, reintegration and restoration (Ortmeier, 2006, p.

In 2010 prisons were over with about 2.2 million incarcerated Americans, on average every prison was over capacity by 14 percent, there are even some prisons that were over capacity by 34 percent. Annually the government spends roughly 60 million dollars on the correctional system and with the rise of amount if people being incarcerated that number will also greatly rise, thus depleting our budgets as well as our society as a whole (English, 2010). Prison philosophy is of prevention, deterrence and retribution, however according to Gudaris “the rehabilitative effect of long term incarceration appears to be negligible. Most imprisoned individuals will be released at some point and will reoffend” (Gudaris, 2013). Many criminals and gangs use prisons as a headquarters to recruit new members and run operations for their personal benefits.

This leads to first time offenders to commit additional crimes when being released from prison (English, 2010). Overpopulation can also cause safety issues to all correctional officers as well as safety of the inmates. All of these issues can be attributed to the overpopulation of incarcerated prisoners. These issues need to be addressed not only for the safety of correctional officers and prisoners, but to actually adhere to the philosophy of rehabilitation of prisoners, as well rebuilding the budget and qualities of the communities and states