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.
Kalief Browder was an African American man who was arrested for allegedly stealing a backpack. While waiting for his time to go to Trial, he was held on Rikers Island where he spent most of his time in solitary confinement. Also during his stay at Rikers Island he was constantly beaten and starved. Three years after he was released out of prison he committed suicide. In this case like most, being locked up and treated inhumane later on drove him to take away his own life.
Once the inmate is done being booked, you get a cell roomate. Newcomers get the the top bunk, while the inmate that was already in the cell, rolls down to the bottom. Your age doesn’t matter and if you take any medications, you do what you have to do to receive them. Most of the time, the medications are offered to you when you are released to eat twice a day or how ever many times a day you need to take those medications. If you have have medical problems, do what you have have to do to maintain a healthy, stable life while incarcerated.
What are your thoughts about the prison system? Today 's prisons are so bad that prisons in the United States hold 5 percent of the US population. Many people get sent to jail cause of the 3 law strike because a lot of minorities are caught with drugs. Plus the government is wasting 75 billion dollars on these facilities instead of using the money in a better way like making programs for the prisoners that need help with mental health or other stuff.
These people believe that longer sentencing and harsher laws will decrease the crime rate. A belief that could not be further from the truth, and one that has caused prisons to no longer be seen as correctional facilities that provide alternate paths to crime. Instead, they are now perceived as either a center of inhumane psychological torture that goes unnoticed or a billion dollar enterprise. Those who argue this point forget that U.S prisoners are American citizens that deserve redemption. Moreover, this anti-rehabilitation mindset has caused prison recidivism rates to be increasingly high with 77% of released prisoners being arrested again in the five years following release.
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.
Kanye West recently tweeted out an excusable pseudo-quote from a fictional depiction of Harriet Tubman, “I freed a thousand slaves. I could have freed a thousand more if only they knew they were slaves.” The problematic quote accurately implies that there are many people who do not realize that they are victims of societal injustice. Indeed, the United States of America was founded during a time of common prejudice and palpable pain for many minorities; unfortunately, this systemic oppression remains even in modern society. In particular, the American prison system can be closely associated with a modern day slavery.
The justice system in the United States of America is not fair. Michelle Alexander writes a great article “Locked Up In America” describing how people gets into the justice system and how their life is when coming out of jail. People that are convicted of any crime they are labeled as criminals and felons. Criminals does not get properly punished for their crimes if they did they wouldn’t be so many people going in and out of jail. The justice system should have different ways of punishing a person according to the crime they commit, just by putting them in jail and assuming that is going to change them is not a good way of going about that.
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
One of greatest threats to the United States today is terrorism. Currently, terrorist organizations are seeking to recruit human sources within the United States. “The danger to America’s security is, therefore, not the number of adherents to Islam in prison, but in the potential for small groups of true believers to instigate terrorist acts, either by other prisoners once they are released, or by existing cells in the community”(Hamm, 2007). One major concern is that U.S. correctional institutions may become a source for such recruitment. This type of recruitment is highly likely.
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.
Reduce sentence lengths and ensure consistent sentencing practice. 10. Develop opportunities for parole or other forms of early release and assist prisoners on release to prevent their return to prison. These are some measures to prevent the overcrowding of prison which is major root cause of many problems in the prisons.
There’s a multitude of things that need to be repaired in our system, and prison is one of them. Prison reform is an important issue because we need to take care of everyone and with the way we treat criminals, we do not see them as equal. We need to assess illegal acts correctly instead of trying to put people in jail for the rest of their lives. We also need to work more on how we try to rehabilitate people. Instead of barring convicts off from the rest of us, we need to teach them how to integrate, so they can live better lives than they did
The government treats prisoners as if they are nothing in this world. The U.S prison system needs to be reformed by building new and better prisons and making it more humane and fair. Looking back to the prison history. Incarceration has not always been a common form of punishment. Back then people wanted to reform and change the way
Open prisons are usually for prisoners who were moved from closed prisons for rehab purposes. There are no external protection to an open prison. The prisoners with good conduct in the work force belong in this kind of prison area. Enforcement officers can go out under the supervision and protection, and also it is possible to discuss freely with visitors. Prisoners in the open prison are required to work hard labor for the government, it can also be community service.
