America has the largest incarceration rate in the world. There is an extreme amount of overpopulated and overcrowded prisons in the U.S to date. Over the last two decades we have completely quadrupled the number of inmates across America. More than 40 million Americans live in poverty. For every 100,000 of those U.S. citizens, there are 716 of them behind bars. In other countries like Norway for example the number is much lower. To reduce to population of inmates in America something must change. Providing inmates with Drug Rehabilitation Programs, minimum wage jobs and job training, opportunities for higher educations and a seamless transition back into normal society, these countries are breaking the cycle of reincarceration and preventing …show more content…
. Drug rehab programs prevent inmates from falling back under the spell of illicit substances. Drug use in America is a huge problem with lower income families in the United States. This can cause a rightfully employed citizen to lose their job and resort to a life of crime and often, back into the revolving door of the the United States Prison System. Countries like Norway have taken the initiative to stop this revolving door with their Narkotikaprogram. This program gives drug offenders a chance to avoid prison if they choose to sign up for a drug program. Norway’s Justice Minister said this about the program “The Goal is that more addicts will rid themselves of their chemical dependency and fewer will return to crime, but if the terms of the programme are violated the convicts must serve an ordinary term in prison”. I believe that this proposed amendment will provide help to those in need of a rehab or drug program instead of being locked away in incarceration. This will prevent the overcrowding of Prisons and ultimately help these individuals succeed and maintain stable
Most black Americans are under the control of the criminal justice today whether in parole or probation or whether in jail or prison. Accomplishments of the civil rights association have been challenged by mass incarceration of the African Americans in fighting drugs in the country. Although the Jim Crow laws are not so common, many African Americans are still arrested for very minor crimes. They remain disfranchised and marginalized and trapped by criminal justice that has named them felons and refuted them their rights to be free of lawful employment and discrimination and also education and other public benefits that other citizens enjoy. There is exists discernment in voting rights, employment, education and housing when it comes to privileges. In the, ‘the new Jim crow’ mass incarceration has been described to serve the same function as the post civil war Jim crow laws and pre civil war slavery. (Michelle 16) This essay would defend Michelle Alexander’s argument that mass incarcerations represent the ‘new Jim crow.’
"Too many Americans go to too many prisons for far too long, and for no good law-enforcement reason … Although incarceration has a role to play in our justice system, widespread incarceration at the federal, state and local levels is both ineffective and unsustainable. . . We need to ensure that incarceration is used to punish, deter and rehabilitate – not merely to convict, warehouse and forget"(Holder). Former Attorney General Eric Holder does not dispute that prisons play an important role in the justice system. He believes that along with punishing the inmate’s prisons should provide them with rehabilitation. With the already overpopulated prison system across the US there should be alternative for lesser nonviolent offences.
“It is said that no one truly knows a nation until one has been inside its jails. A nation should not be judged by how it treats its highest citizens, but its lowest ones” (Nelson Mandela, 1994). The United States of America has more people behind bars than any other country on the planet. The prisons are at over double capacity. It cost a lot of money to house prisoners each year. A large number of the prisoners are there because of drug related offenses. There are prisoners who have been sent to prison for life for marijuana related drug offenses. Many prisoners have been exonerated after spending many years behind bars due to the corruption in our legal system. 32 States in United States of America still execute prisoners even though there is no evidence to suggest that capital punishment is a deterrent. Prison reform is needed in America starting at the legal system and then ending the death penalty.
One, is the viable America. The America that is connected to its own economy, and where there is a plausible future for the ones born into it. But there is another America as well. One where opportunity and forgiveness are scarce. Those caught possessing recreational drugs are sent to prison for fifty years or more, never seeing their families and communities again, but rather a six by ten cement block. It doesn’t matter if they had a mental illness that led them to prison, or an unfair judgment because of their skin color. All that matters is that they fill a bed, so that private prison companies will make their pay. This is the current system of mass incarceration in America. Although America currently incarcerates a quarter of all prisoners in the world, people do nothing. 2.2 million citizens are missing from the nation, yet we see it as perfectly fine as these men, women, and children are criminals. Yes, they are criminals but they are also people. People who in our current prison system are being denied the basic human rights. Most prisoners are being tortured with solitary confinement, spending up to seven years with little to no human contact, with no way out. Those who are placed in confinement are not violent criminals but rather African American non-violent criminals. Non-violent criminals who often turned to crime because they are victims of our failed education system, or their parent had been in jail. Our prison
The number of Americans that are in prison has elevated to levels that have never been seen before. Prisons in the US have always been crowded ever since the first prison was invented (Jacobs and Angelos 101). The first prison in the US was the Walnut Street Jail that was built in Philadelphia in 1773, and later closed in the 1830’s due to overcrowding and dirty conditions (Jacobs and Angelos 101). The prison system in modern US history has faced many downfalls due to prison overcrowding. Many private prison owners argue that the more inmates in a prison the more money they could make. In my opinion the argument of making more money from inmates in prisons is completely unconstitutional. If the private prisons are only interested in making
Today, half of state prisoners are serving time for nonviolent crimes. Over half of federal prisoners are serving time for drug crimes. Mass incarceration seems to be extremely expensive and a waste of money. It is believed to be a massive failure. Increased punishments and jailing have been declining in effectiveness for more than thirty years. Violent crime rates fell by more than fifty percent between 1991 and 2013, while property crime declined by forty-six percent, according to FBI statistics. Yet between 1990 and 2009, the prison population in the U.S. more than doubled, jumping from 771,243 to over 1.6 million (Nadia Prupis, 2015). While jailing may have at first had a positive result on the crime rate, it has reached a point of being less and less worth all the effort. Income growth and an aging population each had a greater effect on the decline in national crime rates than jailing. Mass incarceration and tough-on-crime policies have had huge social and money-related consequences--from its eighty billion dollars per-year price tag to its many societal costs, including an increased risk of recidivism due to barbarous conditions in prison and a lack of after-release reintegration opportunities. The government needs to rethink their strategy and their policies that are bad
Once upon a time, we could proudly to say that America is the land of freedom and opportunities. As the pledge of Allegiance stated, “[I pledge allegiance to the Flag of the United States of America, and to the Republic for which it stands,] one nation under God, Indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.” However, under the current criminal justice system, more and more people lose their liberty more than they deserved because of the crimes they have committed.The incarceration rate in the United States of America has skyrocketing since 1980s, in other words, the prison is overcrowded and we need to reform our current prison system. According to Roy Walmsley, a consultant to the United Nations and Associate
An “alternative to incarceration” is any kind of punishment other than time in prison or jail that
Overcrowding in our state and federal jails today has become a big issue. Back in the 20th century, prison rates in the U.S were fairly low. During the years later due to economic and political factors, that rate began to rise. According to the Bureau of justice statistics, the amount of people in prison went from 139 per 100,000 inmates to 502 per 100,000 inmates from 1980 to 2009. That is nearly 261%. Over 2.1 million Americans are incarcerated and 7.2 million are either incarcerated or under parole. According to these statistics, the U.S has 25% of the world’s prisoners. (Rick Wilson pg.1) Our prison systems simply have too many people. To try and help fix this problem, there needs to be shorter sentences for smaller crimes. Based on the many people in jail at the moment, funding for prison has dropped tremendously.
The “Tough on Crime” and “War on Drugs” policies of the 1970s – 1980s have caused an over populated prison system where incarceration is policy and assistance for prevention was placed on the back burner. As of 2005, a little fewer than 2,000 prisoners are being released every day. These individuals have not gone through treatment or been properly assisted in reentering society. This has caused individuals to reenter the prison system after only a year of being release and this problem will not go away, but will get worst if current thinking does not change. This change must be bigger than putting in place some under funded programs that do not provide support. As the current cost of incarceration is around $30,000 a year per inmate, change to the system/procedure must prevent recidivism and the current problem of over-crowed prisons.
In today's society, we are facing many changes. Our own family, neighbors, and countrymen are afraid of many dangers which influence their lives. Although many people have fear which resonates in their consciousness and unconsciousness, the United States has a comparatively low crime rate. Despite this low crime rate, America incarcerates it's citizens five times the rate of Canada and seven times that of most European democracies.(Slambrouck, Paul. 24) Our society needs to be changed. We cannot blame the individuals involved in wrongdoing but we can blame our society who raised these criminals. Of course someone who kills another human being needs to be put away in some form; but we need to make changes. We need to help as many maladjusted people as we can. There are some steps which really seem to work. There are many prison inmates who come from broken homes and have low self-esteem. What needs to be done to help these insecure people, who are at war with themselves and society, is to rehabilitate them. The problem is the prison officials do not try to teach the prisoners how to learn from their mistakes.(McGovern, Celeste. 42) What actually happens is that criminals tend to be better thefts, and have the ability to out smart the police. Our politicians need to stress how important vocational, educational, drug-treatment, and religious programs are, in order to improve the attitude and demeanor of these convicted felons. This is the only way to keep ex-con's from jail.(DeLuca, H.R. 38) Another problem with America's prison system is overcrowding. There is a huge amount of young conscienceless offenders who are entering today's prisons. Imagine trying to compact eight gallons of water in a five gallon con...
According to the Oxford Index, “whether called mass incarceration, mass imprisonment, the prison boom, or hyper incarceration, this phenomenon refers to the current American experiment in incarceration, which is defined by comparatively and historically extreme rates of imprisonment and by the concentration of imprisonment among young, African American men living in neighborhoods of concentrated disadvantage.” It should be noted that there is much ambiguity in the scholarly definition of the newly controversial social welfare issue as well as a specific determination in regards to the causes and consequences to American society. While some pro arguments cry act as a crime prevention technique, especially in the scope of the “war on drugs’.
Parental incarceration can affect many aspects of a child’s life, including emotional and behavioral well-being, family stability and financial circumstances. The growing number of children with an incarcerated parent represents one of the most significant collateral consequences of the record prison population in the U.S. Children who have an incarcerated parent require support from local, state, and federal systems to serve their needs. Kids pay both the apparent and hidden costs while their loved one serves out sentences in jail or prison.
For most people, education is the key to success later in life. It can be used for many things such as to learn more knowledge, find a better job, and used to contribute to the world. However, if someone struggles and is unsuccessful in their education, they would most likely turn to crime and then be incarcerated. The cycle of education and incarceration generally begins with low income school districts where they do not have the money to invest in good education. Then the students, who are struggling, drop out of school and are more likely to be imprisoned. The incarcerated are then further limited in their education and will have a harder time to find a job when they are released. Therefore, the cycle of education and incarceration continues as the convicted results back on their return to prison. Thus, with more educational services, it would lead to less incarceration because with more support, the general population of prisons will be able to give back to society instead of being behind bars.
America locks up five times more of its' population than any other nation in the world. Due to prison overcrowding, prisoners are currently sleeping on floors, in tents, in converted broom closets and gymnasiums, or even in double or triple bunks in cells, which were designed for one inmate. Why is this happening? The U.S. Judicial System has become so succumbed to the ideal that Imprisonment is the most visibly form of punishment. The current structure of this system is failing terribly. To take people, strip them of their possessions and privacy, expose them to violence on a daily basis, restrict their quality of life to a 5x7ft cell, and deprive them of any meaning to live. This scenario is a standard form of punishment for violent offenders, although not suitable for nonviolent offenders.