A sample of inmates released during this period was drawn from a list obtained from the Florida Department of Correction, for a total sample of roughly 3,793 offenders. Careful attention was given to securing a representative sample from each offense group. The offenders chosen were released from public and private state prisons after expiration of their sentences. The centralized idea of this study was to determine the differentiation between public and private state prisons focusing on recidivism. I have chosen two cases that reflect on the central issue of this topic and how they are treated by the Courts which can hopefully shed some light on the research problem as it exists in present society. These cases are based on California's legislative system which relate to the problem of recidivism in Florida.
In 1994, California legislators and voters approved a major change in the state's criminal sentencing law, (commonly known as Three Strikes and You're Out). The law was enacted as Chapter 12, Statutes of 1994 by the Legislature and by the electorate in Proposition 184 (Mullin, 1998). As its name suggests, the law requires, among other things, a minimum sentence of 25 years to life for three-time repeat offenders with multiple prior serious or violent felony convictions. The Legislature and voters passed the Three Strikes law after several high profile murders committed by ex-felons raised concern that violent offenders were being released from prison only to commit new, often serious and violent, crimes in the community.
Repeat offenders are perhaps the most difficult of criminal offenders for state
and local criminal justice systems to manage. These offenders are considered unresponsive to incarceration as a ...
... middle of paper ...
...hout possibility of parole for a seventh nonviolent felony (Ewing v. California)."
Harmelin v. Michigan 501 U.S. 957 (1991)
This case states that Harmelin claims clearly establish a principle that his sentence is so grossly disproportionate that it violates the Eighth Amendment
(Andrade v. California).
Robinson v. California 370 U.S. 660 (1962)
This case argues that in this case, it is "unrealistic" to think that a sentence of 50 years to life for Andrade is not equivalent to life in prison without parole (Andrade v. California).
References
Ewing v. California, 538 U. S. 11 (2003)
Lockyer v. Andrade 538 U.S. 63 (2003)
270 F.3d 743
Mullin, Jerome P.(1998). California Criminal Law Observer, (Three Strikes and You're Out Law) Retrieved March 25, 2006, from http://www.silicon- valley.com/3strikes.html
One of the most controversial laws in the efforts to reduce crime has been the "three-strikes" laws that have been enacted. This law, which is already in twenty-seven states, requires that offenders convicted of three violent crimes be sentenced to life in prison without chance of parole. The law is based on the idea that the majority of felonies are committed by about 6% of hard core criminals and that crime can be eliminated by getting these criminals off the streets. Unfortunately, the law fails to take into account its own flaws and how it is implemented.
There have been many Supreme Court cases that dealed with many concepts of the law, like obscenity for example. As a matter of fact, obscenity is a concept that Miller v. California deals with. To be more specific, this case deals with what is considered obscene, and if the specific obscenity mentioned in this case is protected by the first amendment, the freedom of speech. I will now explain this case in more depth.
Interpretation of the Eighth Amendment-Rummel, Solem and The Venerable Case of Weems v. United States. Duke Law Journal, Vol. 1984:789. Retrieved from http://scholarship.law.duke.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2886&context=dlj&sei-redir=1&referer=http%3A%2F%2Fscholar.google.com%2Fscholar_url%3Fhl%3Den%26q%3Dhttp%3A%2F%2Fscholarship.law.duke.edu%2Fcgi%2Fviewcontent.cgi%253Farticle%253D2886%2526context%253Ddlj%26sa%3DX%26scisig%3DAAGBfm0U6qTJJcBT1EoWmQVHDXIojJgBHw%26oi%3Dscholarr#search=%22http%3A%2F%2Fscholarship.law.duke.edu%2Fcgi%2Fviewcontent.cgi%3Farticle%3D2886%26context%3Ddlj%22
When envisioning a prison, one often conceptualizes a grisly scene of hardened rapists and murderers wandering aimlessly down the darkened halls of Alcatraz, as opposed to a pleasant facility catering to the needs of troubled souls. Prisons have long been a source of punishment for inmates in America and the debate continues as to whether or not an overhaul of the US prison system should occur. Such an overhaul would readjust the focuses of prison to rehabilitation and incarceration of inmates instead of the current focuses of punishment and incarceration. Altering the goal of the entire state and federal prison system for the purpose of rehabilitation is an unrealistic objective, however. Rehabilitation should not be the main purpose of prison because there are outlying factors that negatively affect the success of rehabilitation programs and such programs would be too costly for prisons currently struggling to accommodate additional inmate needs.
Samuel Walker conducted very thorough research on the propositions he presented to us in his book. His twentieth proposition read as follows; " 'Three strikes and you're out' laws are a terrible crime policy" (Walker, 1998: 140). Walker justifies his claim by asking and then explaining three questions. The first question is whether the law would actually be implemented.
The majority of prisoners incarcerated in America are non-violent offenders. This is due mainly to mandatory minimum sentencing laws, which is a method of prosecution that gives offenders a set amount of prison time for a crime they commit if it falls under one of these laws, regardless of their individual case analysis. These laws began in the 1980s, when the use of illegal drugs was hitting an all time high (Conyers 379). The United States began enacting legislature that called for minimum sentencing in an effort to combat this “war on drugs.” Many of these laws give long sentences to first time offenders (Conyers). The “three strikes” law states that people convicted of drug crimes on three separate occasions can face life in prison. These laws were passed for political gain, as the American public was swept into the belief that the laws would do nothing other than help end the rampant drug crimes in the country. The laws are still in effect today, and have not succeeded to discourage people from using drugs. Almost fifty percent...
Prisons and correctional facilities in the United States have changed from rehabilitating people to housing inmates and creating breeding grounds for more violence. Many local, state, and federal prisons and correctional facilities are becoming more and more overcrowded each year. If the Department of Corrections (DOC) wants to stop having repeat offenders and decrease the volume of inmates entering the criminal justice system, current regulations and programs need to undergo alteration. Actions pushed by attorneys and judges, in conjunction current prison life (including solitary confinement), have intertwined to result in mass incarceration. However, prisoner reentry programs haven’t fully impacted positively to help the inmate assimilate back into society. These alterations can help save the Department of Corrections (DOC) money, decrease the inmate population, and most of all, help rehabilitate them. After inmates are charged with a crime, they go through the judicial system (Due Process) and meet with the prosecutor to discuss sentencing.
According to Vitiello, (1997) after a threefold increase in the nations prison population between 1980 and 1994, California publicized a “three strikes” legislation. (Vitiello, 1997, pg 1). This was imposed to get tougher on violent crimes.
It is undeniable that mass incarceration devastates families, and disproportionately affects those which are poor. When examining the crimes that bring individuals into the prison system, it is clear that there is often a pre-existing pattern of hardship, addiction, or mental illness in offenders’ lives. The children of the incarcerated are then victimized by the removal of those who care for them and a system which plants more obstacles than imaginable on the path to responsible rehabilitation. Sometimes, those returned to the community are “worse off” after a period of confinement than when they entered. For county jails, the problem of cost and recidivism are exacerbated by budgetary constraints and various state mandates. Due to the inability of incarceration to satisfy long-term criminal justice objectives and the very high expenditures associated with the sanction, policy makers at various levels of government have sought to identify appropriate alternatives(Luna-Firebaugh, 2003, p.51-66).
The state of California is currently suffering from a state deficit so great it would seem wise to restructure the death penalty as it stands now rather than cut education programs and jobs. California is a state which supports capital punishment; it is also a state that very rarely executes it death row inmates. In the last several years, California’s public educations system has taken on enormous budget cuts due to the state revenue crisis. As political leaders gather in the senate and review the gravity of the state’s situation, political leaders should examine how restructuring the death penalty and implementing life without parole would be beneficial for the state and those residing within the state itself. Utilizing the death penalty for the more serious offenders, such as serial killers, and implementing life without the possibility of parole, would allow the state to focus on improving educational resource, maintain job security, increase law enforcement on the streets, and rehabilitative programs for criminals.
In 1972, the Furman v. Georgia, 408 U.S. 238 came into preponderance and introduced the concept of the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendment when considering decisions against the death penalty. In the Furman v. Georgia case, William Furman was the defendant who shot and killed a homeowner when he burglarized the home in Savannah, Georgia, in 1967. Since Furman was African American, who committed a crime against a white homeowner in the South that is considered to be a racially discriminatory region, the near all-white jury decided on a death sentence within less than a day’s trial and deliberation (Oshinsky, 1). Furman’s attorney then appealed the decision to the Supreme C...
“The history of correctional thought and practice has been marked by enthusiasm for new approaches, disillusionment with these approaches, and then substitution of yet other tactics”(Clear 59). During the mid 1900s, many changes came about for the system of corrections in America. Once a new idea goes sour, a new one replaces it. Prisons shifted their focus from the punishment of offenders to the rehabilitation of offenders, then to the reentry into society, and back to incarceration. As times and the needs of the criminal justice system changed, new prison models were organized in hopes of lowering the crime rates in America. The three major models of prisons that were developed were the medical, model, the community model, and the crime control model.
With the substantial increase in prison population and various changes that plague correctional institutions, government agencies are finding that what was once considered a difficult task to provide educational programs, inmate security and rehabilitation programs are now impossible to accomplish. From state to state, each correctional organization is coupled with financial problems that have depleted the resources to assist in providing the quality of care in which the judicial system demands from these state and federal prisons. Judges, victims, and prosecuting attorneys entrust that once an offender is turned over to the correctional system, that the offender will receive the punishment imposed by the court, be given services that aid in the rehabilitation of those offenders that one day will be released back into society, and to act as a deterrent to other criminals contemplating criminal acts that could result in their incarceration. Has our nation’s correctional system finally reached it’s critical collapse, and as a result placed American citizens in harm’s way to what could result in a plethora of early releases of inmates to reduce the large prison populations in which independent facilities are no longer able to manage? Could these problems ultimately result in a drastic increase in person and property crimes in which even our own law enforcement is ineffective in controlling these colossal increases in crime against society?
Americans believe that the more serious a crime is, the longer a person should spend in a prison. In reality it means that a law at discretion can sometimes just set a number of years that a person should spend in the jail, regardless of the situation. The time in the prison is often very long (Randall, Brown, Miller& Fritzler, p.216) because some states have definite sentence or mandatory sentences which leave little room for the judge to decide on the merits of the person. For example, California favors “Three Strikes and You’re Out”(Randall & et al., p.216) stance on the laws which means after third felony crime, a person must spend 25-year-to-life sentence in the prison. They believe that the deprivations of basic needs, isolation from the society, and in extreme cases, death are consequences of committing a crime.
All over America, crime is on the rise. Every day, every minute, and even every second someone will commit a crime. Now, I invite you to consider that a crime is taking place as you read this paper. "The fraction of the population in the State and Federal prison has increased in every single year for the last 34 years and the rate for imprisonment today is now five times higher than in 1972"(Russell, 2009). Considering that rate along crime is a serious act. These crimes range from robbery, rape, kidnapping, identity theft, abuse, trafficking, assault, and murder. Crime is a major social problem in the United States. While the correctional system was designed to protect society from offenders it also serves two specific functions. First it can serve as a tool for punishing the offender. This involves making the offender pay for his/her crime while serving time in a correctional facility. On the other hand it can serve as a place to rehabilitate the offender as preparation to be successful as they renter society. The U.S correctional system is a quite controversial subject that leads to questions such as how does our correctional system punish offenders? How does our correctional system rehabilitate offenders? Which method is more effective in reducing crime punishment or rehabilitation? Our correctional system has several ways to punish and rehabilitate offenders.