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United States Prison System Essay

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What do you think you know about the United States Prison System? Do you have the information you need in order to decide? This paper will give you the information necessary on the past, present, and future of prisons in order to make a sturdy opinion of the United States Prison System and whether or not it is headed in the correct direction. Starting way back in time as just a temporary holding tank, prisons have evolved dramatically over the years to become black holes of corruption. There needs to be a complete re-evaluation of the views people hold with regard to prisons and think about the future keeping in mind what they could be. Going many years back, even before the 1700’s, jails were still considered a place you didn’t want to …show more content…

Conditions in these institutions were really bad and they were also unproductive. This led to outrage in the late 19th Century which sparked the “reformatory” movement. This was a period when the prison’s role in society began to be restructured. The goal was to redefine the prison’s role as that of “reforming” inmates into model citizens that can rejoin normal society as functioning, productive people. In order to achieve this goal prison systems began providing inmates with education, work, and counseling. This was a great step in the right direction for the prison …show more content…

Whether it be restructuring the way we send people to jail, or restructuring the prison system the current system is not effective socially or economically, for the prisoners or for the country as a whole who is supporting them. Sources say that some courts are experimenting with sentences that allow criminals to remain out of prison for lesser crimes. This helps to free up space in the jails and allows people to remain a part of normal society. The latter half of that is important because it takes less readjusting back to normal life after. This makes it so we have more productive members of

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Halfway through the 18th century, the United States was serving as a model for prisons. Dix was revolutionary in reforming prisons. She convinced states to invest in libraries, basic education, and more care for the men, women, and even children imprisoned in the jails and penitentiaries whereas abuse regularly occurred (Parry). Pennsylvania was a key role model for prisons all over the United States. This state’s prisons were known for having “two of the best prisons in the world” (“Prison and Asylum

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There are many subjects in the book “The Essentials of Criminal Justice.” Through the fourteen chapters, the chapter I will be discussing is chapter eleven. Chapter eleven talks about the history of correctional institutions, jails, prisons, and alternate correctional institutions. In this paper, I will be discussing only part of chapter eleven. It will be discussing the history of the correctional Institutions which includes the following: the history of the correctional institutions, the origin of corrections in the United States, the development of prisons, the New York and Pennsylvania systems, and the comparisons of the 19th and 20th century correction systems.

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In “Are Prisons Obsolete,” Angela Davis, an American activist who served 16 months in prison before being acquitted, argues that today's prison systems fail to address the root causes of crime. Despite their intended purpose, prisons lack the structure needed to rehabilitate inmates. We become so quick to assume that imprisoning criminals leads to a safer environment. As prisons continue to expand and their inmate population rises, they become embedded in society's norms without the consent of the people or critical examination of their effectiveness. Davis argues for reform, noting that the current system has serious flaws in addressing criminal behavior, as she believes crime will continue to persist and keep growing exponentially within

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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).

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This preconceived notion could not be farther from the truth. In reality, these reform movements are idiotically placing a bandaid over the tremendous issue that the prison system is. An imbalance of reforms between women and men, unrestrained sexual abuse in women’s prisons, and tyrannical gender roles are just three of countless examples of how prison reform movements only create more misfortune and fail to provide any real solution to worsening prison conditions. Perhaps instead of conjuring up additional ideas on how to reform prisons, America’s so-called democratic society should agree upon abolishing prisons as a whole. This being said, it is crucial to identify ongoing issues in today’s society, understand how they contribute to unlawful behavior, and seek a solution.

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Improving American Prisons When looking at the American prison system it can be seen that it is something that can and needs to be improved on. Compared to other countries around the world the United States is number one with the highest incarceration rates. In 2013, the United States Department of Justice, estimated that more than 1.5 million persons were in a state or federal prison. That is an increase of 4000 more than in the previous year. As we can see, overcrowding is one of the biggest problems that the government faces when looking at prisons.

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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

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The prison system is able to change it just takes the government not being as stubborn. They outlaw the death penalty. If the death penalty was still used the prisons would have about ⅔ of the inmates left then what is has now. As seen here ”people talk about how the death penalty is not a deterrent. Well, we do it so infrequently.

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163 Words | 1 Pages

In order to reduce the population of inmates, those released need to continue to stay out of prisons. The rate of recidivism, in which inmates go back to jail after release, is about sixty-eight percent. This is a surprising percentage, and that jail cells have become revolving door as it’s only a matter of time after release, does an inmate end up back in jail. Changing the methods of prisons and how inmates are treated, is an idea providing to solutions of the major issues. The current system of dehumanization of inmates and locking them behind cell walls twenty-three hours a day, is proving to be an ineffective way of dealing with criminals.it is time to change ways and stray away from a strictly punishment ethic and move to a more rehabilitation

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2232 Words | 9 Pages

In prisons today, they are large, guarded, organized penitentiaries that rehabilitate prisoners in a controlled and heavily guarded environment while also doing it in humanitarian ways. This system of prisons allows people who have committed crimes to learn from their mistakes and become better people after their sentence. This wasn't always the case, however, before the antebellum period, prisons were unorganized, poorly funded, and run, and their morals were completely based on physically harming prisoners to “teach them a lesson.” Before this movement, the crime rates across the United States surged with a large increase of immigrants moving to the country. Due to this, there was a large need for a change in the prison system so reformers

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Since 1970, our prison population has risen by some 700% - an increase far outpacing rates of population growth and crime1”. The reason America has so many incarcerated people is not because Americans commit more crimes or the police are just better at finding criminals,

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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.

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679 Words | 3 Pages

Thesis: It is very important for the sake of Americans tax dollars that we change the way that prisons are run and increase the productivity of inmates so when they are released from jail they are ready to be a productive member in society and have the confidence to achieve new goals. Introduction: Day after day, millions of inmates sit in jail doing nothing productive with their lives. We are paying to house inmates that may not even have a good reason to be there. For example, drug offenders are being kept with murderers and other violent offenders.

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912 Words | 4 Pages

We are paying too much for prisons and this can be greatly reduced I believe. The goal of going to prison in my opinion is to have that person change, realize what they’ve done and have a form of normalization practiced in the prisons so they have that preparation for re-assimilation into the normal world. Don’t get me wrong, SOME inmates do not deserve a second change to be with society again. Those I would consider to be the more heinous of crimes.

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Thesis Hypothesis and Statement: Prisons in in the United States of America are definitely overcrowded, they are understaffed and I believe put very little effort on rehabilitation. The U.S. prison system was set up to rehabilitate prisoners so they can blend back into society as good people. But the factors as high crime rate and of course, mandatory sentences have caused a very high over crowding in our jail systems. This have caused a high increase in the budget deficit. Some citizens will say, where was the rehabilitation that we once used and it has all but now disappeared in our prison and jail system today.

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