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The war on drugs and its effects on society
Benefits and drawbacks of prisons
Pros and cons of the parole system
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Understanding the nuts and bolts of the prison system is interesting and sometimes hard. But overall it 's a huge bureaucracy that consumes resources in order to incarcerate people. It does that job, sometimes well, sometimes less than well. We have many dedicated professionals working to make it function right.
In the article “Even Prisoners Must Have Hope”, Richard Stratton (the author) talks about his thoughts on the federal prison system in America. Stratton himself had served 8 years in jail for smuggling marijuana. He strongly advises not to make the prisons even worse than they already are. The harsh conditions and other peoples’ vengeful attitudes toward criminals only make the violence and crime continue. According to Stratton, instead of improving the harsh conditions and trying to rehabilitate and help prisoners that could lead to peace, our society inflicts more pain and punishment, enforcing a violent cycle.
Over the past 40 years U.S. incarceration has grown at an extraordinary rate, with the United States’ prison population increasing from 320,000 inmates in 1980 to nearly 2.3 million inmates in 2013. The growth in prison population is in part due to society’s shift toward tough on crime policies including determinate sentencing, truth-in-sentencing laws, and mandatory minimums. These tough on crime policies resulted in more individuals committing less serious crimes being sentenced to serve time and longer prison sentences. The 1970s-1980s: The War on Drugs and Changes in Sentencing Policy Incarceration rates did rise above 140 persons imprisoned per 100,000 of the population until the mid 1970s.
Federal prisons fail in providing rehabilitation services to undocumented immigrants. This becomes a rising issue, as the United States is composed primarily of immigrants. The federal Bureau of Prisons mission is to, “provide work and self-improvement opportunities to assist offenders in becoming law-abiding citizens.” (cite) The BOP just skips over undocumented immigrants and restricts their use of prison resources. Some of which are essential job training and drug counseling.
In the United States of America, there are many systems throughout the government. There is the Department of Health, Department of education, and many more to be listed. One system that often causes controversy is the Department of Correction, this department always raises the question; does our jail/correction system work? The correctional system has flaws and gives some result, however, there are more cases than not that prove the correctional system needs a great deal of improvement. Due to the living conditions and the activity inside of the United States prisons the prison system is looked at as dysfunctional.
Introduction Since the War on drugs began American has had a prison problem. The goal of this era and the tough on crime era that proceeded it the goal was to be tough on crime in order to stop it. This meant mass incarceration and hard time for offenses such as drug use (drug policy: facts). The 1990’s saw the biggest increase of the prison population with federal policies such as three strikes. Today these polices has made America the number incarcerated group in the planet despite having only 5% of the world’s population (ACLU: Prison Facts).
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.
“while the old saying notes that crime doesn't pay, that doesn't hold true for America's system of incarceration, which has seen spending more than triple since 1980.” Aimee Picchi. Our entire country would be filled with prisons. It would be too expensive and take up too much time. If prisoners don’t learn from their mistakes the population of people in society will increase
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.
Those who find themselves sentenced to time in a penitentiary, jail, or prison are at risk of either being broken or strengthened by the time they spend behind bars. There is a great debate of whether or not the prison system in the United States is positive or negative. The following will briefly highlight the positives, negatives, and possible alternatives for our nation's prison system. First, there is a long list of negatives that the prison system in America brings. The prison system is filled with crime, hate, and negativity almost as much as the free world is.
Australia is experiencing a rise in the use of incarceration in all states and territories, with the national imprisonment rate increased by 6 percent from 196 prisoners per 100,000 adult population in 2015 to 208 prisoners per 100,000 adult population in 2016 (Australian Bureau of Statics, 2016). While, the United States, which has the world’s highest incarceration rate about 608,300 populations in 2005, decreased 2.3 percent from 2014 (The New York Times, 2016). The reason why this happens is that the American federal prison system is in crisis that caused by too many people are sent to prison. In this case, the prison system released thousands of nonviolent drug offenders to relieve stress and save money. According to these data, I begin
In 1972, former President Richard Nixon made his infamous statements regarding crime and drug abuse. In this speech, he declared a war on crime and drugs and intended to decrease the number of people using drugs and the amount of crimes that were committed. Since this declaration, incarceration rates in the U.S. have gone up by 500%, even though the amount of crime happening has gone down. One of the reasons why I feel our rates have risen, is because sometimes, we put people in jail when they don’t need to be there in the first place.
According to the Federal Bureau of Prisons, the majority of those being held in federal prisons are convicted of drug offenses mainly marijuana. 1 out of every one 100 Americans are serving time behind bars. Minor criminals, from drug users to petty thieves, are being handed over to corporations for lengthy prison sentences which do nothing to protect society or prevent recidivism. This is the culmination of a justice system which has characterized the United States as a justice system based upon increasing the power and wealth of a corrupt corporation instead of it being a justice system for the
The prison-industrial complex is a corrupt political system that consists of overpowered politicians whose sole ambition is exploiting poor, uneducated, and under-privileged Americans to make money. Although, it wasn’t initially the purpose when Rockefeller started the war on drugs, but he started something bigger than he could’ve imagined at that time. The prison system has been proven to be ineffective, and costly waste of resources. However, it probably won’t be abolished due to the cash flow that it brings to some of the largest corporations in the
isn’t the only thing people believe needs to change; the reasons for arrests have been criticized by many. America incarcerates more citizens for drug related crimes than any other place in the world. Of the roughly 200,000 in federal prison, 52% are being held for drug crimes and only 8% are for violent crimes, such as: murder, assault, and robbery (Waldman, 2013). Many believe that the “War on Drugs” must become less aggressive because of its large contribution to the prison population. The distribution of prisoners by race has also raised concern among Americans.
