Today I called the Illinois Representative Michael J. Madigan office and received his answering machine. I left him a message asking him to please consider passing bills for sentencing reform legislation, such as the Sentencing Reform and Corrections Act (SRCA), S.2123. I told him that I am a registered voter and it has come to my attention that the federal prison population has skyrocketed dramatically over the past 35 years and most of the people in the prisons are in for minimum drug sentences. I told him that while people are in prison they are losing income, job skills, and are typically unable to attend rehabilitation programs. All of these aspects make it extremely difficult for the people to obtain jobs or get on the right path once
Your paper was clear and interesting to read, you provided a number of points and topics to include. It is safe to say that through the observation I had involving the prediction of sex offender recidivism, the offenders that undergo treatment are faced with pros and cons meaning that treatment is necessary when an offender is actively participating. On the other hand, the cons involve an offender that receives treatment but isn 't willing to change the behavior and mindset to re-offend. Moreover, you provided an imperative reasoning for the scenario choice, you provided clear motive, history and background, and professional observation.
I have to agree with Alexander (2012) that being labeled a felon condemned individuals to second-class citizenship perpetuate the cycle of criminal behavior. I have seen firsthand individuals being released from prison as a felon back into society and how Jim Crow practices outcast them from society. For example, newly released individuals from prison are indeed released with a financial debt owed to the Criminal Justice System. Many of the individuals often have to pay restitution to victims, court costs/attorney fees, and fees owed to the Probation department. Individual parolees are required to pay money to their probation officers every visit and some parolees may be required to visit their probation officer every month.
After conducting some research I have reached the conclusion that drug offenders are the population in which could be more successfully controlled and rehabilitated in less secure correctional alternatives. There are a couple different beneficial aspects to transferring drug offenders out of prisons and into programs. The first is that is saves money while also being more effective. When you place an inmate into a program that is designed to help them with their specific problem your results improve. The Center for Substance Abuse Treatment’s final report on NTIES noted that “In summary, we observed a pattern of substantially reduced alcohol and drug use in every type of treatment modality, with reductions typically between one-third and two-thirds
The prison system itself is corrupted and unfair to those individuals in it. Even though there are reform programs within the prisons, many prisoners return to prison due to inconsistent follow ups and the absence of these programs outside of prison. This creates high recidivism rates because they have a place to sleep and guaranteed meals and outside of prison it’s harder from them to have access to all of that. Elliot Currie states, “As we have crammed more and more offenders into prison, we have simultaneously retreated from the already minimal commitment to help them reenter productive society.” When the Eastern State Penitentiary was first opened in 1829, its main focus was to rehabilitate prisoners so they could reenter society (Eastern State Penitentiary).
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.
When society is not accepting the newly released prisoner, it makes them feel like they don’t belong, so they go back to their old ways,which involves reoffending. For instance, when a person has served a long-winded sentence,it could be hard to convert what society is now versus what it was before. In addition, programs are provided to reduce the rate of recidivism, but the effectiveness of the program is the bigger issue. Programs tend to be generalized and do not meet the needs of an inmate on an individual level. Also, the program could lack the essentials such as funding and proper staffing.
1. Title of Research Topic - Juvenile substance abuse: A comparison of effectiveness and recidivism rates among offenders within drug-court programs and those sentenced to traditional sentencing. 2. Introduction of Topic – The late 20th century witnessed an alarming increase in substance abuse in the United States, and today, it still continues to rage on, coupled with a continuously expanding inmate population. Therefore, in order to battle this disastrous obstacle, the first ever drug court was established in Miami-Dade County, Florida in 1989.
Many drug offenders are often forced into the drug business because of economic reasons, resulting from the increased difficulty of finding jobs after prison, due to the felony that is attached to their name. Employers are often discouraged from hiring a person that has committed a felony, because of the uncertainty in their behavior. A study done by the Urban Institute, found that only 45% of all Americans that had been to prison, had a job within a year of being released. It was even lower for drug offenders, as only 25% of all drug offenders in the United States were able to find a job once released (McVay). It’s hard enough finding a well paying job because of the current state of the economy in the United States.
Once someone is arrested and sent to prison, most of us think they have done their punishment and learned their lesson. Unfortunately, this is not the case most of the time. Once these inmates are released most of them end up re-offending and going back to prison, this is called recidivism. It looks follows the inmates three years after they are released and sees if they get reoffend and go back to prison with a new sentence. The Bureau of Justice did a survey to see how many offenders went back to prison after they were released.
V. PRISON REFORMS The main part of this research paper is the reforms for the conditions of prison and make prison a better place for prisoner and make an alternative for incarceration. The prison Reform for prevention of overcrowding in prisons: A ten-point method for reducing the overcrowding in the prisons all over the world, these points are1: 1. Collect and use data to inform a rational, humane and cost-effective use of prison.
Many felons go back to the same iniquitous behavior because after they served their time society still punish them with voting rights, the ability of carrying a gun, or even basic as getting an apartment. I truly believe in some cases, not having a second chance results in having a high unemployment and crime rate. The idea that people deserve a second chance is an important American value. In 2010, there were over 2 million individuals classified as a felon in the United States.
Why we should incarcerate drug users Currently one of the less heated but still talked about debates is the issue of what we should do with those who have been caught using illegal substances. Some people say that we should be giving them rehab, and some say that they deserve to be in their. Both sides have their points, but the evidence points towards incarceration being a better option. The reason our judicial system incarcerates drug abusers are because enforcement will discourage drug use, it will keep them away from innocent people, and it will punish the addicts so they know not to do it again.
The concept of ‘recidivism’ is central to understanding the criminal justice system. Recidivism occurs when a person commits a crime again despite having been punished before. One of the main goals of the criminal justice system is to reduce recidivism but in fact longer sentences may increase the probability of recidivism (Griffiths & Cunningham, 2000). One reason is that the climate within a prison is not helpful to the inmate in making personal changes that can lead to reduced recidivism. However, psychologists are trying to develop intervention programmes that in fact lead to such personal changes so as to reduce recidivism.
Recidivism refers to the repetition of criminal behavior (James, 2011). According to the United States Bureau of Justice 2010 statistics report, three-quarters of released prisoners are constantly rearrested for new crimes and more than half of these go back to prison in a period of two to three years after their release. Ex- inmates account for an approximated 19 percent of all arrests (Phelps, 2013, p.55). Criminals who return to the community are also most of the times worse off after a period of confinement than when they entered. It is attributable to the fact that these inmates learn antisocial and criminal attitudes from other
