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The Pros And Cons Of Prisons In Tennessee

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Five of prisons in Tennessee are presently over capacity with another eight currently operating over 95% of assigned capacity (Malcolm, 2014.) “When prisons become overcrowded, there is less money and manpower to provide much-needed treatment, educational, and skills-enhancement programs in prison, and inmate-to-staff ratios can grow to levels that are unsafe for prison staff and other prisoners” (Malcolm, 2014, paragraph 11.) I believe a way to fix that issue it through using different reforms to affect the overall percentage all together. These reforms include limit sentencing, more programs, more parole and probation officers, and specialized courts. In 2014 there were 215,000 people incarcerated in federal prisons, almost half were there for drug-related offenses with the enactment of mandatory minimum sentencing laws for drug offenses in the 1980s, increasing the population by more than 800 percent (Malcolm, 2014.) “Moreover, drug offenders make up the single largest category of incarcerated offenders in Tennessee, serving an average sentence of 9.7 years” (Malcolm, 2014, paragraph 21.) By limit sentencing, we can address the issues of high cost, by using probation and parole for more misdemeanor …show more content…

Tennessee has 759 probation and parole officers who are responsible for supervising 13,546 parolees and 57,234 probationers (Malcolm, 2014.) These demonstrate how unmanageable caseloads they have and how because of that can limit their abilities to effectively supervise offenders (Malcolm, 2014.) One way to achieve the goal of more probation and parole officers is to encourage the job and giving an incentive in receiving the job. Having more will allow lower caseloads and more opportunities to monitor and help the probationer and paroles to achieve outside of prison and hopefully not return to the

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