California overcrowding prisons conditions has gain National attention. The U.S. Supreme court has found that California is in violation of the 8th Amendment. California has been required to reduce their prison inmates by 40,000 inmates. California has utilized many options to reduce the inmate population within the prison system. California has to two years to reduce the inmates count in the prison system.
INTRODUCTION The United States incarcerates a greater percentage of the population than any country in the world (CBS, 2012). According to the US Bureau of Justice Statistics, over 2.3 million adults were incarcerated in federal and state prisons, and county jails in 2013. There are an additional 820,000 people on parole and 3.8 million people on probation (Wagner & Rabuy, 2016) Jail and prison differ primarily in regards to the length of stay for inmates.
Improving American Prisons When looking at the American prison system it can be seen that it is something that can and needs to be improved on. Compared to other countries around the world the United States is number one with the highest incarceration rates. In 2013, the United States Department of Justice, estimated that more than 1.5 million persons were in a state or federal prison. That is an increase of 4000 more than in the previous year. As we can see, overcrowding is one of the biggest problems that the government faces when looking at prisons.
One of the hardest challenges for the United States, in terms of the criminal justice system, is the overcrowding of prisons. In fact, the problem has become so big that the U.S. has more people in jail than any other country on earth – about 2.2 million people, to be exact. To deal with this growing issue, governments and correctional administrations began to invent creative alternatives and policies to handle the overcrowding and to reduce the cost. One of these alternatives has been the use of private prisons, where the individuals in charge of the ownership, operation, and responsibility shifts from the public sector (the government) to the private sector (a third party contracted by a government agency). In order to make profits, private
Mass Incarceration is a term used to describe the increase in the number of people put in jail over a certain period. In recent years, America has had more than two million people put in jail. Most, for minor crimes that were not worth the sentence they received. Privately owned prisons actually make more money based on how many prisoners are in the jail. Organizations like the ACLU are working to cut the number of citizens in prisons by half by the year 2020.
United States Prisons: A Mental Cage The United States is one of the world’s most recognized and powerful superpowers since its industrial and commercial production along with their nearly limitless military budget make them practically invincible. This demonstrates the power of the United States on foreign soil and problems, yet many internal problems in the United States are left disregarded and neglected, simply thrown away. Citizens and lawmakers remain silent on several key social issues and on one of the biggest shameful topics of neglect, America’s incarceration rate.
This website covers the issue of prison overpopulation. This issue affects prisons all across the country. The first feature the website provides a list of each of the fifty states. Choosing a state will take you to a page that provides the number of incarcerated prisoners currently being held and the total cost to run the prison per day. The website also has a section that has articles explaining why prison overcrowding is a problem.
Politicians, reporters, and activists from across the political spectrum have analyzed the ongoing crisis of mass incarceration. Their accounts of our current system sometimes show our current system as an expression of puritanism, as an extension of slavery or Jim Crow, or as a shift but haunting reality of capitalism (Lancaster 2017). “Prison abolitionists are dismissed as utopians and idealists whose ideas are at best unrealistic and impracticable, and, at worst, mystifying and foolish” (Davis 2003). This is a measure of how difficult it is to envision a social order that does not rely on the threat of punishing people in dreadful and harmful places designed to separate them from their communities and families. Prisons are not equipped for
Just imagine the city of Houston being populated with nothing but prisoners. This is how badly the prison system has gotten overcrowded since the 1980's, and it is only going to get worse. Overpopulation has affected the lives of prisoners inside and outside of prison with a plethora of reasons that cause more harm than good. The only way to solve these problems is to reform the programs inside prisons and to reform the laws in the justice system. Prison reform is needed in the current rehabilitation programs inside of prison since little effort is used to implement a correct recovery for the convicted.
Mass incarceration is an expensive, for-profit system that abuses and disenfranchises economically disadvantaged Americans through the war on drugs. The war on drugs introduced policies like COPS (Community Oriented Policing Services) and the Byrne Grant program, which Bill Clinton, the 42nd president of the United States, believes reduced the crime rate by fifteen percent. Alexander refutes this claim, referencing a 2005 Government Accountability Office report that concluded, "the program may have contributed to a 1 percent reduction in crime—at a cost of $8 billion" (Alexander, pg.240). These programs that contributed to mass incarceration had little impact on crime rates, and cost billions of tax dollars. The ineffectiveness of these
Wesley Harper Wilson U.S. History Mr. Osborne May, 22nd, 2024 Should Prisons be Privatized? Privatized prisons have been an issue in the U.S since 1983 when the first privatized prison in the U.S was created. Hamilton County in Tennessee has signed a contract with the Corrections Corporation of America (Prisoning, Privatization, and Public Values, 2002). As time went on, the privatized prison industry grew and so did issues with our prison systems. Should prisons be privatized?
III. Literature Review Prison overcrowding has been a global issue for many years. We can all attest to the fact that incarceration is said to be the main deterrent for individuals who have committed a criminal offense. The sole purpose of this literature review is to identify prospective policies that may assist Ohio with the reduction of their overcrowded prison population. My aimed is to identify four best practices that other states like New York, New Jersey, California and Massachusetts have been using as alternatives to prison hence reducing prison overcrowding.
Title When thinking of a prison the first thing that comes to most people’s minds is the prisoners and how they are treated. What most people don’t realize is that the prisoners are treated better than one would think. Don’t get me wrong it’s no five star hotel, but it is nicer than most schools are. The reason is that it costs $54,865 per prisoner in the state of New Jersey. Right now the state of New Jersey is only spending $19,211 per student.
I have learned a lot about prisons and how they function within this chapter. Prisons today compared to prisons back in the day show a drastic change. Take into consideration the Penitentiary Era (1790-1825), Mass Prison Era (1825-1876), Reformatory Era (1876-1890), Industrial Era (1890-1935), Punitive Era (1935-1945), Treatment Era (1945-1967), Community-Based Era (1967-1980), Warehousing Era (1980-1995), and the Just Deserts Era (1985-present) (Schmalleger & Smykia, 2015, p. 214-217). The Just Deserts Era is punishing criminals because they have earned the right to be punished. They are simply given what they deserve.
Overcrowding in prisons should not be considered cruel and unusual because they are not being harmfully affected enough for it to make a difference in their lives. This is definitely not as bad as the electric chair or other forms of cruel and unusual punishment. The Dictionary definition of cruel and unusual punishment is “torture, deliberately degrading punishment, or punishment that is too severe for the crime committed.” Let’s look between the lines of this definition.
