The last thing about incarcerations is there are other alternatives. That’s the another point the Smarter Sentencing Act is trying to say other than shorter sentencing times. “The 24/7 Sobriety Project is a court-based program designed to reduce the re-offense rates of repeat Driving Under the Influence (DUI) offenders. Started as a pilot project in South Dakota in 2005, the 24/7 Project requires participants to maintain full sobriety, meaning no use of alcohol or illegal drugs, in order to keep their driving privileges and stay out of jail” (). This states that anyone with a DUI or any other drug offences can seek help to stay out of jail in South Dakota.
Intermediate sanctions is a courts response to the overcrowding prisons in the United States. These sanctions are a step up from probation and a set down from incarceration. With these sanctions, rehabilitation is the primary goal, which is used to reform offenders who return to society. There are several types of intermediate sanctions such as house arrest where the offender confined to their home, which they can not leave unless there is school, job, or court. Fines can be several dollars or several thousands of dollars.
However, I would take this system as a positive way to help offender. An offender always needs to stay positive no matter what.
After conducting some research I have reached the conclusion that drug offenders are the population in which could be more successfully controlled and rehabilitated in less secure correctional alternatives. There are a couple different beneficial aspects to transferring drug offenders out of prisons and into programs. The first is that is saves money while also being more effective. When you place an inmate into a program that is designed to help them with their specific problem your results improve. The Center for Substance Abuse Treatment’s final report on NTIES noted that “In summary, we observed a pattern of substantially reduced alcohol and drug use in every type of treatment modality, with reductions typically between one-third and two-thirds
It shouldn’t be that way. For those who commit a lower-level crime like drug possession, petty theft, or selling marijuana, prison is not just unfair, it is also a bad sanction for society at large. Reduce sentence minimums and maximums currently on the books. If someone commits a serious crime, like robbery, they should be punished. But there’s little evidence that staying in prison for such long periods of time, such as the 20 or 30-year sentences imposed, will rehabilitate prisoners.
The halfway house will be the first indicator that an ex-offender may not be ready to re-enter society. I would have more of these types of facilities to ensure all ex-offenders were exposed to this step before being released from conditional
The deterrence theory suggests that “the severity of criminal sanctions dissuades other potential offenders from committing crimes out of fear of punishment. ”4 That is applicable to the individuals that are punished and to people in the community. Nevertheless, prison’s effectiveness is often questioned as an effective deterrent to crime. Studies have shown that longer sentences have a small effect on whether offenders commit crimes or not, and the National Academy of Sciences determined that “insufficient evidence exists to justify predicating policy choices on the general assumption that harsher punishments yield measurable deterrent effects.
Unfortunately the process failed in the case of Dude Freeman and he reoffended and was sent back to the facility to be sentenced for the eighth time. “While dude waited again for the terms of his punishment to be determined, he was thrust into this institutional confusion, and, to some extent at least, it was through the drug game that he imagined his way out. And of course, he was not alone.” (Bergmann, 2008:156) The system does not always work because the judicial system hopes that when the individuals are released back into the general population that they have learned their lesson through their experiences in the juvenile detention facility.
With the economy in the turmoil that it is in America cannot continue to support these sentencing guidelines. The Mandatory Article Sentencing declares that the laws are becoming a huge drain on the Justice Bureau’s budget, and in 2012 the United States had far beyond more people incarcerated than any other country. Most of these prisoners are low-level drug offenders sentenced under mandatory sentencing guidelines with a cost draining on American taxpayers $6.8 billion a year, as of 2012. These costs do not seem to have a ceiling and continue eating up about twenty-five percent of the federal justice system’s yearly budget.
Incarcerating youth for drug offences is an incredible detriment to their lives and can end up having permanent effects. By removing a juvenile from society and locking them in prison you are taking away their lives, their family and friends, and everything they had every known. Juveniles are often subject to harsh facilities and exposure to adult criminals who can foster the juveniles into worse criminals than they were to begin with. Likewise incarcerating youth exposes them to violence form their peers and abuse from those in charge of them. Incarcerating youth is effectively demoralizing them.
One possible alternative route to the prison system could be a boarding school type system where convicts are required to participate in an educational program that gives them the knowledge and ability to be released and given the needs to go make something better of the life they have been given. This system where they are required to participate in educational training would come along side a strict rule system that would encourage them to make the decision to choose something better. The debate is whether or not prison is beneficial or not for those who will be convicted, sentenced, and released. Whether we change the system or not there will always be crime and
The term "Prison Industrial Complex" (PIC) is used to express the rapid expansion of the United States inmate population. The prison industrial complex (PIC) is an expression used to describe the connection between the interests of government and industry that use surveillance, policing, and imprisonment the resolution to economic, social and political problems. The P.I.C helps to maintain the authority of people who get their power through racial, economic, social and other privileges. Power is collected and maintained through the PIC in many ways, including creating mass media images that reinforce the stereotypes associated with people of color, less fortunate people, homosexual people, immigrants, youth, elderly and other oppressed communities. These stereotypes imply that those who are associated with these groups of society are criminals, corrupt, delinquent, deviant, etc.
The current system that incarcerates people over and over is unsustainable and does not lower the crime rate nor encourage prisoner reformation. When non-violent, first time offenders are incarcerated alongside violent repeat offenders, their chance of recidivating can be drastically altered by their experience in prison. Alternative sentencing for non-violent drug offenders could alleviate this problem, but many current laws hinder many possible solutions. Recently lawmakers have made attempts to lower the recidivism rates in America, for example the Second Chance Act helps aid prisoners returning into society after incarceration. The act allows states to appropriate money to communities to help provide services such as education, drug treatment programs, mental health programs, job corps services, and others to aid in offenders returning to society after incarceration (Conyers, 2013).
This model focuses on the individual needs of the offender and in doing so increases their chance of living sober once they reenter society. For example, indeterminate sentencing allows offenders who exhibit good behavior and participate in prison substance abuse programs to be paroled closer to the minimum sentencing term. This means the offender can be released from prison based on conditions set forth by the court. If the offender violates parole by committing another crime or failing to continue substance abuse treatment, they can be returned to prison. Furthermore, offering indeterminate sentencing for offenders who meet the criteria creates prison space thus helping with the ongoing problem of prison overcrowding (Seiter,
However, crimes are committed whilst in prison, such as drugs and assaults. Some critics say the ‘three strikes and you are out’ law where repeat offenders get a longer sentence are wrong, as the third strike could be a lesser crime such as public disorder. Nevertheless, if just incapacitation and no rehabilitation some critics say will be costlier to society as they will go out and reoffend and, they are not employed and pay taxes. Rehabilitation is also a punishment which should improve the offender's behaviour and stop them committing crimes. Advocates of rehabilitation state prison does not work; however, critics of rehabilitation state prison does work as the criminal cannot commit a crime against the public while incarcerated (Cavadino, 2007 p 36/56).
