Overcrowding Vs Incarceration

There are over 2.2 million people incarcerated in the United States. Research by the International Centre for Prison Studies has shown that incarceration percentages increased by more than 500% over the last 40 years. As statistics show increases in incarceration, prison overcrowding has become more of an ever-growing situation in the United States. Prison overcrowding occurs when the rate of people incarcerated exceeds the rate of prisoners released. There are over 17 states that the prison population is higher than the capacity of the facilities designed to hold them. A majority of those states are still recovering from a recession that minimalized budgets. The facilities have to decide to whether spend more taxpayer money to expand rooms,

Recent reports from the Vera Institute of Justice calculated annual average cost per inmate to be $31,286 upwards to $60,076 in specific states. Overcrowded prisons lead to unsafe profit prison expansions, more taxpayer money spent on incarceration rather than education, and perpetuating the cycle of poverty to incarceration. The United States has more people incarcerated than any country on earth, more than communist china, which is an authoritarian country four times the size of America. There is no doubt that overcrowding exists in America. The private prison industry has been on the rise. These prisons are not operated by the government but pay private companies to run it for the government. The longer an inmate stays in jail the more profit the private prison industry makes for profit. A report by the American Civil Liberties Union in 2011 gathered evidence that private prisons are indeed costlier to taxpayers, more violent for inmates, and less accountable for breaking policies. Private prisons state to save money but in actuality profit prisons leave little savings and abuse prisoners in the process. State represented Chad Campbell of Arizona stated private prisons leave most expensive prisoners to be paid for by taxpayers. While taxpayers are juggling the price the inmates are in a cycle of suffering. Private prisons in Michigan were found serving rat-infested food, underfeeding inmates, and severing spoiled

When in actuality the purpose is to rehabilitate and lower the percentage of inmates committing a crime upon release. To teach skills in order to less likely land back into prison which would further the issue of overcrowding. Some Americans believe overcrowding prisons is fair because criminals are not entitled while inmates live better than a lot of lower income members of society due to their access to healthcare. Many claim that criminals should not be comfortable that taxpayers are paying for them to be sheltered, fed, and clothed. That the $30,000 average per inmate to keep them incarcerated by funds from taxpayers is more than enough. It is true to an extent that criminals do not deserve to be entitled but the inhumane dangerous living conditions found in most prisons are unjust. Inmates should not have to live in animalistic barbarian conditions. Inmates suffer long sentences to be released to no community or rehabilitation back into society. However, there is discomfort and there is bordering on torture. There are prisons that exist and do not put prisoners through harsh living conditions. Except overcrowding has highlighted the other side that borderline abuses it’s