Mass Incarceration In Jails

violent or nonviolent (1). It is hard to figure out who is a violent criminal due to the way they were charged under the justice system. There is no way of showing whether or not violence was used while they were dealing or drug using. These statistics prove that by focusing on other resolutions for non-violent crimes, the incarceration rates could be reduced. Along with rehabilitation for drug offenders, there is also a need for proper rehabilitation of mentally ill patients and prisoners to keep them from relapsing and ending up back in the system. Brooks states in his article that in the early 70s, a large majority of people were released from mental institutions. This caused an issue because a lot of these inmates released were not mentally

This creates problems because it adds to the eminence amount of tax dollars spent every year. In the article “The high price of incarceration in America” by Aimee shows that the average American taxpayer spends about $260 a year that is almost 80 billion dollars a year for incarceration (1). There have been many voters who have been trying to reduce the amount of mass incarcerations that have been going on since the 1980’s. The majority of prisoners who were released between 2014-2015 returned to crime but the rate that they were committing the crime and returning was dropped at an astonishing degree. In the article “Prosecutors Fight to Plan to Lower Drug Sentencing “ by Sari, Horwitz (1) shows how government officials are trying to cut back on the amount of long term sentencing for first time offenders. Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. is one of the individuals who has been trying to reduce the ever growing prison problem. Holder is after the prisoners who are in for non-violent crimes and reduce sentencing for defendants in most most drug cases. He has been struggling with district attorneys and federal prosecutors nationwide. Some of the people who are opposing the bill think it is crucial when it comes to breaking up drug cartels. This is possible all through communication with the lower level defendants and who are slowly working their way up “The criminal chain of command.” A lot of the problems is that there are a lot of prisoners in our justice system who do not need to be there such as low profile non violent criminals. Gannett News further states how how there has been 13 states who have improved their sentencing laws, this is including some republican states like Arkansas, Kentucky, South Carolina, Louisiana and Georgia (Gannett News Service 1). In Alabama the U.S. Justice System has taken control of all the prisons in Alabama so they are now run by the federal government. The problem with the federal government having control of Alabama 's