Assembly Bill 109 (AB109), enacted in California in 2011, is a landmark criminal justice reform legislation that aimed to address the overcrowding crisis in the state’s prisons. AB109 sought to realign the criminal justice system by shifting the responsibility of incarcerating certain low-level offenders from the state to the counties. AB109 has sparked debates and discussions on its effectiveness, impact on county probation departments and jails, and its implications for public safety. The law aimed to create a more sustainable and cost-effective approach to criminal justice while promoting rehabilitation and reducing recidivism. The primary goal of AB109 was to realign the state’s criminal justice system and shift the responsibility of
The reformed Rockefeller Drug Laws worked to eliminate mandatory prison sentencing for first and second drug felony offenders as well as establishing statewide judicial diversion programs for certain felony offenders (Kluger & Rempel, 2013). This reform also gave previously convicted offenders the opportunity to apply for resentencing. This allowed people like Cheri O’Donoghue’s son to question their previous sentences to get a more just retrial and a sentence that was more fitting to his low-level offence. This does not include individuals with Class A felonies, limiting them to alternative sentences and increases prison time (Parsons, Wei, Henrichson, Drucker, & Trone, 2015).
Over the past 40 years U.S. incarceration has grown at an extraordinary rate, with the United States’ prison population increasing from 320,000 inmates in 1980 to nearly 2.3 million inmates in 2013. The growth in prison population is in part due to society’s shift toward tough on crime policies including determinate sentencing, truth-in-sentencing laws, and mandatory minimums. These tough on crime policies resulted in more individuals committing less serious crimes being sentenced to serve time and longer prison sentences. The 1970s-1980s: The War on Drugs and Changes in Sentencing Policy Incarceration rates did rise above 140 persons imprisoned per 100,000 of the population until the mid 1970s.
However, the penalty stands to be only temporary. Studies have shown that only seventy-one percent of those released from prison are convicted of a serious crime within only three years after their releasement ( ). Is prison housing the criminals or teaching them? A correctional facility is built to correct and rehabilitate, however prison systems in America appear to be only a short stop before the production of the criminals grand plan. The majority of those who are sentenced to prison have a high rate of returning due to their difficulty in gaining a position with a self-sustaining wage and a lack knowledge on a life without crime.
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.
Mass incarceration is somewhat overlooked by those on the outside and those who are on the inside are considered forgotten about and viewed as less than. But the reality is, these high rates of imprisonment effect many areas of the community. Not to mention the social costs linked to the communities from which these immense population of felons come from. Pattillo, Weiman, & Western, 2006 analyzes how this disregarded population can sometimes increase criminal statistics after the prisoners return into the same community they left – which is another point rarely ever talked about. Other than the invisible consequences that mass incarceration provides, there are even more myriad studies offered surrounding this topic, identified in The Prison
The literature answers the issues of incarceration rates increasing by giving us the product such as legislative decisions that were the primary reason that led to the increase of charging and imprisoning more offenders as well as increasing sentences, limiting prison release, and expanding the prison capacity. Higher incarceration rates were not the sole reason for the increase in crime. Prisons were continuing to be built even though crime had been declining. Later resulting in the sharpest decrease in crime in American history. Essentially every states incarceration rate was increased by 150 percent from 1970 to 2000, and the median state increasewas 390 percent, which was taken from the Bureau of Justice Statistics in 2012.
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.
Prisons in the United States are tearing apart lives and increasing the rates of mental illness in our country. In this essay, I will be discussing the affects that this system has on our criminals and my theory on how it can be improved. First of all, instead of keeping our justice system as a punitive resource, it should be used to restore the delinquent’s morals and social
Criminal legislation and incarceration have long been used as a means to control "powerless" and disadvantaged groups in America. These groups are socially and politically neglected and only receive attention when they are perceived to be a threat to the larger society and then the attention comes in the form of control and punishment (Page, 1993). The control generally manifests itself through crime legislation and the punishment through incarceration. By the end of 2005, there were more than 7 million people under some form of criminal justice supervision (Glaze & Bonczar 2006; Harrison & Beck, 2006a). With such a large and growing number of people under correctional control during a time in which crime rates had either fallen or were stabilizing raises important questions about the purpose and consequences of this institutional intervention.
If crime is decreasing and incarceration is increasing, society is in danger. In other words, incarceration is producing crime and perishing human growth by drawing government interest from promoting education, community ties, and the desire to excel in a working environment. Consequently, considering the history of political influences on the American justice system, high incarceration rates is a larger benefit for public officials who influence crime management in oppose to the needs of society, which indicates the purposeful process of incarceration. Rather than addressing the root of the crime to efficiently prevent crime, public officials have invested in the prison system by falsifying a “tough on crime” image to pleasure the public and glamorize their personal
Traditionally, crime has been viewed as a violation against the state. Still too little attention is given to the fact that criminal acts are also violations of the victims and the communities. Punishing and correcting offenders’ criminal behaviors should not only be conducted using the concepts of retribution, incapacitation, and deterrence, it should also be designed to repair the damages done to the victims and the communities. Many benefits are associated with shifting to the restorative justice model, for the victim, the offender, and the community. Restorative justice benefits the victims by giving them a voice regarding the accountability of the offender.
Criminal Justice Reform addresses structural issues in criminal justice systems such as racial profiling, police brutality, overcriminalization, mass incarceration, and recidivism. The United States incarcerates its citizens more than any other country. Mass incarceration disproportionally impacts the poor, and people of color, and does not make us safer. In an attempt to balance safety and justice for those accused of a crime, many jurisdictions have enacted new criminal laws. Some examples of this new approach include the elimination of cash bail, decriminalization of actions previously treated as crimes, and refusal to prosecute persons arrested for crimes.
In the United States “1 in nearly 100 American adults” are incarcerated. (ALEC) The increase in prison population began in the late 80s and early 90s, due increased prosecution for all levels of crime and the adoption in many states of “three strikes” laws requiring mandatory sentences for offenders convicted of a third felony. (ALEC) Many jurisdictions are attempting to find alternatives to incarceration including community supervision programs to deal with the revolving door of prison and the overcrowding that results from it.
Today our justice system has a multitude of options when dealing with those who are convicted of offenses. However, many argue that retributive justice is the only real justice there is. This is mainly because its advantage is that it gives criminals the appropriate punishment that they deserve. The goals of this approach are clear and direct. In his book The Little Book of Restorative Justice, Zehr Howard (2002), illustrates that the central focus of retributive justice is offenders getting what they deserve (p. 30).
