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The history of the american correctional system
Historical developments of prison in the us essay
The history of the american correctional system
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How would you feel if you were thrown in an American prison in the horrendous state they are in today? Many people are content with the prison system we have. In the essay, “Why Prisons Don’t Work,” Wilbert Rideau, an African American man who was convicted of murder at age nineteen, challenges this complacency with the system and claims prisons do not change the convict from the person they were when they committed the crime. Putting uneducated people who made silly, impulsive choices in jail is not the way to make a community safer. Prisons do not offer good rehabilitation programs for inmates.
Understanding the American Correctional Association The American Correctional Association was founded in 1870. It was known as the National Prison Association. The association is non- profit, private and it is non- governmental. It lays its basis on carrying correctional services.
What is different about that? So instead, the punishment that is commonly and usually given to the criminals such as murders, rapists,
Today’s court and justice systems, as well as our prison system, are flawed and don’t do enough to not only hinder any further crime from occurring, but put those who may cause further complications in our society in jail. In the article “Why Prisons Don’t Work,” Wilbert Rideau, a murderer sentenced to life in jail, explains his reasons and provides evidence on why our prison system is counterproductive. According to Rideau, many of those who are thrown in prison, were convicted due to their unskilled, impulsive, and uneducated actions. Putting these men in prison may seem like a good idea, but there are underlying reasons why prisons don’t work.
Deterrence philosophy reason for sentencing is defined as a philosophy that crime can be prevented through the threat of punishment. Incapacitation philosophy is defined as a philosophy that crime can be prevented by detaining wrongdoers in prison thereby separating them from the community and reducing criminal opportunities. Finally rehabilitation philosophy is defined as the philosophy that society is best served when offenders are provided the resources to get rid of criminal activity from their daily behavior patterns. Retribution just holds the severity of the crime against the guilty and is aimed at pleasing the society as whole party rather than just the victim/s. Deterrence uses other criminals as examples for the community to be discouraged from crime. There are two types of deterrence, general deterrence is punishing one person that has committed a crime,
The third rationale for sentencing is incapacitation, which focuses on isolating the offender from others once society has deemed the offender as dangerous and unable to live amongst the community. The understanding behind this objective is that, criminals should be isolated or otherwise confined in order to prevent them from re-offending and committing further harm to society. It is evident that if the offender is executed or imprisoned for life, he or she cannot commit future crimes against other individuals in society. However, the idea behind incapacitation lies in society’s fear that the offender may re-offend.
Incapacitation is a philosophy of incarceration that argues that some offenders might have to be incarcerated not for what they have done but to prevent future harm to the community. Selective incapacitation is provided for under dangerous offender legislation. philosophy of incapacitation depends on the ability of the community to identify those that might re-offend. Some also argue that incapacitation is unfair as incapacitation is punishment to people for what they might do, rather than for what they have done. Incapacitation is considered to be a subset of specific deterrence.
Transcendentalists were Americans that believed everyone should be treated equally, so they began six major reform movements. There were many Transcendentalist movements, but the six most important reforms were the prison movement, women’s rights, anti-slavery, temperance, insane and education movement. The prison reform movement was started by the Transcendentalists because they felt that the system was wrong unfair and cruel. All prisoners suffered the same consequences regardless of his or her crime.
Since we have become more civilized our punishments just mean being incarcerated and detained by the state. Instead of punishing the body they punish the mind/soul of the criminal by taking way their freedom. When it comes to policy making we are now unable to use pain as punishment and we must
Theories of punishment and legal procedures determine the fate of those that are sentenced in courts. There are multiple core theories of punishment used to impose a criminal sentence, these theories are as follows; Deterrence, Incapacitation, Rehabilitation and retribution. Deterrence questions weather or not fear can discourage certain crimes. General Deterrence often uses swift and severe sentencing, often using certain accused criminals as examples to discourage would-be criminals. Specific Deterrence focuses on dissuading that specific offender from committing any further crimes.
Incapacitation is detaining of criminals positively thus preventing future offending. One example in history is that people used to move away from the community never returning
The analysis resulted in the formulation of four major themes or “essences” (Table 8), supported by themed clusters which were derived from “formulated meaning units”. In this respect, I was looking to elicit participants’ ‘systems of relevances’ (Shutz, 1944) in other words, the interpretive and meaning making work the respondents are engaged in. Major themes from the respondents narratives 1. Smoking - the social norm of everyday prison life 2. Tobacco - as mechanism for control and enforcement 3.
This is almost 30 percent of the U.S adult population. It is then, easy to understand the increasing importance of crime and punishment to citizens and politicians alike. Some have even suggested that the penal system is in a state of crisis. The question of this paper is that ‘how should we punish crimes and different theories of punishment-
There is a worldwide trend in the use of penal imprisonment for serious offenses as capital punishment has been renounced by an increasing number of countries. Harsh punishments include capital punishment, life imprisonment and long-term incarceration. These forms of punishments are usually used against serious crimes that are seen as unethical, such as murder, assault and robbery. Many people believe that harsher punishments are more effective as they deter would-be criminals and ensure justice is served. Opposition towards harsh punishments have argued that harsher punishments does not necessarily increase effectiveness because they do not have a deterrent effect, do not decrease recidivism rates and do not provide rehabilitation.
There are two main theories which advocate punishment for the sake of punishment, and place their emphasis on the purpose of prisons as deterrence rather than
