Prison Overcrowding Sebastian Acosta Veliz The Conditional Early Release Bond is a strong solution to manage prison overcrowding, ultimately assuring the safety of people and the community. Implementing the early-release bond can effectively relieve the problem of prison overcrowding while keeping the people safe. In the early years of America, the problem of prison overcrowding was a significant problem that dates back to the 1800s. The Pennsylvania System tried to address prison overcrowding by implementing 24-hour confinement cells. Regardless, this solution resulted in more prison overcrowding, with two to three people per cell. The "Auburn System" was a larger version of the "Pennsylvania System" but discovered similar issues with overcrowding. …show more content…
Doing this would help prisons reduce overcrowding and also have “minimal additional staffing or administrative cost for local and state government.” The bond also lowers recidivism and, “this would free up space in prisons while keeping those released accountable, thus keeping the communities safe”. Also, the bond could be taken away if the prisoner did not do what he or she had to do, such as maintaining employment and staying off drugs. “This bond allows for the early release of legislatively defined participants from prison – primarily nonviolent offenders – but requires that they post a bond. The bond would be revoked if they did not meet all the requirements of the program like keeping gainful employment and staying off drugs.” The financial penalties for not doing the right thing create a strong incentive that the bail bond agent can use to make sure the offender follows the rules. Since the bond lowers recidivism, it keeps the people safe because the offender won’t do criminal activities, otherwise the offender returns to custody. O'Brien: 1) The Reform of Mandatory Minimums can be better than the Conditional Early Release