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Benefits Of Incarceration

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Incarceration refers to the constitutional deprivation of an offender the capacity to commit crimes by detaining them in prisons. The United States has the highest incarceration rate of any free nation. The U.S incarcerates five times more people than the United Kingdom, nine times more than Germany and twelve times more than Japan (Collier, 2014, p.56). Incarceration has several objectives. One of these is to keep persons suspected of committing a crime under secure control before a court of competent jurisdiction determines whether they are guilty or innocent. Incarceration also punishes offenders by depriving them of their liberty once the court of law has convicted. Moreover, incarceration deters criminals from committing further crimes …show more content…

However, the construction of new prison facilities has not provided a sustainable solution for the reduction in crime rates in the society. Incarceration has also proven to be expensive. There are several costs associated with incarceration. These include costs of building new facilities, costs of paying prison staff, maintaining the prisons and costs of treating particular classes of prisoners such as elderly and mentally ill inmates. The United States spends billions of dollars on incarceration each year with the average yearly increase in state spending on prisons from 1999 to 2009 being approximately 3 percent (James, 2011, p.632). With the number of incarcerated offenders growing each year, the cost of incarceration is expected to continue rising. According to the National Association of State Budget Office, correctional spending by state governments by 2011 was estimated to be at $50 billion annually (Collier, 2014, …show more content…

According to Phelps (2013), as from 1998 to 2007 states that had the greatest increases in incarceration rates failed to observe a corresponding drop in crime rates. On the other hands, states such as New York, Texas, New Jersey and North and South Carolina that lowered their incarceration rates in favor of community corrections programs experienced a drop in crime rates (p.53). Incarceration has also failed in correcting prisoners. Most of the prisoners always go back to committing crimes once released from prison. It has led to a rise in the recidivism rates of prisoners. Recidivism refers to the repetition of criminal behavior (James, 2011). According to the United States Bureau of Justice 2010 statistics report, three-quarters of released prisoners are constantly rearrested for new crimes and more than half of these go back to prison in a period of two to three years after their release. Ex- inmates account for an approximated 19 percent of all arrests (Phelps, 2013, p.55). Criminals who return to the community are also most of the times worse off after a period of confinement than when they entered. It is attributable to the fact that these inmates learn antisocial and criminal attitudes from other

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When society is not accepting the newly released prisoner, it makes them feel like they don’t belong, so they go back to their old ways,which involves reoffending. For instance, when a person has served a long-winded sentence,it could be hard to convert what society is now versus what it was before. In addition, programs are provided to reduce the rate of recidivism, but the effectiveness of the program is the bigger issue. Programs tend to be generalized and do not meet the needs of an inmate on an individual level. Also, the program could lack the essentials such as funding and proper staffing.

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In the United States there are a large number of people incarcerated for a variety of offenses. This does not come cheap for the American taxpayer. American taxpayers pay for all of those incarcerated in the US. The sheer amount of imprisoned can lead to a hefty bill.

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Bohm indicates that when recidivism was defined similarly, rates remained static. Researchers felt a good indicator of an inmate’s inclination to continue to commit crimes upon released was his past arrest history. Prisoners who possessed extensive records of arrest /incarceration were more likely to be rearrested; therefore implying those with fewer arrests were less likely to refrain from committing criminal acts. Bohm also states that the most critical time for an inmate to relapse and return to prison is within the first year of release, “two-thirds of all the recidivism of the first 3 years occurred in the first year” and additionally …” more than three of every ten inmates are returned to prison within 4 years…”(2012). Research indicates

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Recidivism costs the state of Florida more than $150 million annually (Florida Department of Corrections). A strong financial incentive is not the only thing bringing Florida legislators to the table however; electoral calculations also are a draw for the legislators. Reducing the amount of felons in Florida through education programs and through an improved rehabilitation system while cutting state prison spending is a platform that appeals to Democrats and Republicans alike. Legislators campaigning for re-election will be able to tout effective criminal justice reform as one of their accomplishments over their past term. When a task force studied recidivism for the state of Florida in 2004, it concluded that “the loss of civil rights upon conviction of a felony” (Miller and Spillane 405) was an element of Florida’s criminal justice system that needed to be reformed.

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The United States has a larger percent of its population incarcerated than any other country. America is responsible for a quarter of the world’s inmates, and its incarceration rate is growing exponentially. The expense generated by these overcrowded prisons cost the country a substantial amount of money every year. While people are incarcerated for several reasons, the country’s prisons are focused on punishment rather than reform, and the result is a misguided system that fails to rehabilitate criminals or discourage crime. This literature review will discuss the ineffectiveness of the United States’ criminal justice system and how mass incarceration of non-violent offenders, racial profiling, and a high rate of recidivism has become a problem.

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In reference to the latest statistics, there are 2.3 million Americans behind bars, representing the highest incarceration rate in the world (Western & Pettit, 2010). Although incarceration rates for males during 2011 is currently down by 1.7% and showed a similar rate of decline from 2010 to 2011, incarceration statistics are still astronomically high. Of the estimated 1,362,028 total adult incarcerations during the period of 2000 to 2010, at least 12.6%, which is 152,898 inmates, were sentenced under state jurisdiction and 3.8%, which is 190,641 inmates, were sentenced under federal jurisdiction (Bureau of Justice Statistics, 2011, p. 10). This does not include the local and county incarcerations of each state.

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The view many are accepted to use prisons to indicate that certain forms of behavior will not be tolerated, and to protect them from those who refuse to play by the rules, has become a policy position that dares not speak its name. This has been put unchallenged over and over again as a paradoxical illustration of how the size of a prison reflects the level crime, not the victimhood of society. Incarceration is an effective program in regards to the regulation of crime rates due to a portrayal of how Tyrone Hoard presented the society the insufficiency of diversion programs as followed by statistical graphs and its persistence in criminal offering. A widespread use of incarceration manages the increase of crime rates, whereas alternatives in which the government has invested in this cognitive behavioral therapy is spineless.

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Once someone is arrested and sent to prison, most of us think they have done their punishment and learned their lesson. Unfortunately, this is not the case most of the time. Once these inmates are released most of them end up re-offending and going back to prison, this is called recidivism. It looks follows the inmates three years after they are released and sees if they get reoffend and go back to prison with a new sentence. The Bureau of Justice did a survey to see how many offenders went back to prison after they were released.

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Recidivism is high because of drug abuse, psychological issue and sociological consequence for ex- felons. We generally only focus about the punishment given to these criminal and believe that once a criminal is release that their life wouldn’t be as complicated as we tend to think. The turntable to it all is that these past prisoner suffer long term effects due to imprisonment. Such as, drug abuse; suicide, psychological difficulties and political, economic and social difficulties. Due to all these factors, we will conclude that they are the reasons to why past prisoners have a higher chance into returning to prison.

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In an ideal world, there would be no crime, and we would all live harmoniously, but that does not seem to be a possibility now or anytime soon. Criminal activity has been around since the beginning of time, and the controversy of how to punish the offender began immediately after the first offense was committed. In the United States today there are endless offenses committed daily that violate a vast number of laws, and there is no disagreement that when someone breaks a law that there must be a consequence. The controversy arises over what type of sanctions should be applied when a criminal act is committed. Critics of prison alternatives feel that incarceration is the only real type of justice and are reluctant to explore more options.

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Prison reentry is the reintroduction of ex-offenders into society. Recidivism is the onset to jail, as a consequence of another crime committed. In modern society, reintegration and recidivism has increased and represents a more prominent issue. After reintegration into the general public, there is no assurance that there will not be a deterioration. In light of this, prison reentry and the recidivism are challenging things to be moving in a more positive direction, particularly in the United States.

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Recidivism is an extreme yet critical concept in the criminal justice system. This term is used to describe an offender that has replicated an undesirable behavior after they are rehabilitated, or have experienced the consequences of that said behavior. Recidivism creates a costly challenge to our society particularly in the United States. In the United States the recidivism rate is that of approximately 60% of released offenders (Grassel, Maxwell, Viscuso, Isorena, & Reyes 2012, p 17). Recidivism is assessed by an offenders unlawful acts that have resulted in a re-arrest, reconviction and or a return to incarceration with or without new sentencing during the three-year interval following the offender’s release.

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Statistics show that “over 600,000 individuals are released from prison annually and three-quarters of them are rearrested within five years of their release” (APA). Change must be made soon in order to fix such unfortunate odds for released

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The National Justice Institute provides statistics on the total cost of all these inmates saying the United States spends an estimated $50 billion on corrections annually. The cost of corrections is growing exponentially, and out-pacing other government services. Such as transportation, higher education, and public assistance (Petersilia). With money towards corrections instead of other programs, the solution seems to be clear. Reducing recidivism, by creating programs, would lower the cost the United States is spending on prisoners.

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For decades, the United States correctional facilities have had one of the highest incarceration rates throughout the world, contributing to excessive overcrowding. The rate for United States juveniles incarcerated is no different. The rate is about 300 per 100,000, which has significant consequences on these young individuals. Over the years, reforms have been concentrated on giving these delinquents an alternative option besides incarceration. Alternatives such as community-based programs have substantial long-term benefits for these individuals and the community.

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