Reminisce back into the elementary school days, where hundreds of kids start to line up for food at the cafeteria. Now picture that cafeteria stuffed with multitudes of bunk beds side by side in which the whole school has to sleep in. Any parent would disapprove of a living situation that is similar to that, but all over the nation, prisoners are facing those exact problems. With the rise of the prison population in America, prisons all over the nation fear what could lead to huge detrimental consequences, one of which is overcrowding. What started out as buildings to only house couple thousands of dangerous criminals, drug offenders, and etc., are now turning into towns and cities of inmates with more prisoners than it can provide for. Many factors contribute to the overpopulation of prisons, but are the government funded prisons the best way of resolving this issue? The expansion of more private prisons has been a topic of many debates in America, especially in California, due to the many issues popping up in state run prisons. Third party prisons would not only help the huge overcrowding dilemma, but many other issues in the prison as well. The installment of more private prisons would satisfy both the taxpayers and prisoners and transitioning to the privatization of prisons would overall benefit the nation as a whole.
As new criminal offenses are added to the penal code and the war on drugs increases, the rate at which inmates are being incarcerated has shot up. While these stricter rules can benefit the public from illegal activities, it is one of the main causes of overcrowding that is an eminent problem in many prisons. Overcrowded prisons usually have rooms that carry more inmates than it is supposed to. If overcrow...
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...Private State Prison Releases in Florida." Florida Department of Corrections. (2003): n. page. Web. 10 Dec. 2011. .
Gilroy, Leonard, Adam Summers, et al. "Public-Private Partnerships for Corrections in California: Bridging the Gap Between Crisis and Reform." Reason. (2010): n. page. Web. 10 Dec. 2011. .
Johnson, Kirk. "What To Do About The Prison Problem: The Pros and Cons of Privatized Prisons in Alabama." Alabama Policy Institute. (2007): n. page. Web. 10 Dec. 2011. .
Miller, David. "The Drain of Public Prison Systems and the Role of Privatization: A Case Study of State Correctional Systems." Corplan Corrections. N.p., n.d. Web. 10 Dec. 2011.
Trachtenberg, B. (2009, February). Incarceration policy strikes out: Exploding prison population compromises the U.S. justice system. ABA Journal, 66.
The Justice Gap (2012) [online] “Privatising prisons a step too far”, Available at: http://thejusticegap.com/News/privatising-prisons-a-step-too-far/ [last accessed on 10th November]
Roberts, John W. "Work, Education, and Public Safety: A Brief History of Federal Prison Industries." n.d.
California has one of the most dysfunctional and problematic prison system in US. Over the last 30 years, California prison increased eightfolds (201). California Department of Correctional and Rehabilitation (CDCR) does little to reform prisoners and serve as human warehouse rather than a correction institution. California's prison system fails the people it imprisons and society it tries to protect. In many cases, California's prison system exacerbates the pre-existing problems and aids in the formation of new problems for prisoners. This paper discuses the criminogenic effects of overcrowding, and reduction/elimination of programs and how it negatively affects California and the ballooning prison population and possible remedies.
The proliferation of prison overcrowding has been a rising concern for the U.S. The growing prison population poses considerable health and safety risks to prison staffs and employees, as well as to inmates themselves. The risks will continue to increase if no immediate actions are taken. Whereas fighting proliferation is fundamentally the duty of the U.S. government, prison overcrowding has exposed that the U.S. government will need to take measures to combat the flaws in the prison and criminal justice system. Restructuring the government to combat the danger of prison overcrowding, specifically in California, thus requires reforms that reestablishes the penal codes, increases the state’s budget, and develops opportunities for paroles to prevent their return to prison. The following context will examine and discuss the different approaches to reduce the population of state prisons in California in order to avoid prison overcrowding.
The overpopulation in the prison system in America has been an on going problem in the United States for the past two decades. Not only does it effect the American people who are also the tax payers to fund all of the convicts in prisons and jails, but it also effects the prisoners themselves. Family members of the prisoners also come into effect. Overpopulation in prison cause a horrible chain reaction that causes nothing but suffering and problems for a whole bunch people. Yet through all the problems that lye with the overpopulation in prisons, there are some solutions to fix this ongoing huge problem in America.
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).
Should prisons in the United States be for profit? How do for profit prisons benefit the United States? Would inmates rather be in private or public correctional centers? What kind of affects does this have on taxpayers? What are the pros and cons of profit prisons? These are many of the questions that are brought up when discussing for profit prison systems. There are different perspectives that can be taken when it comes to talking about for profit prisons. This paper will discuss some of the ways that the United States has started to become for profit and why it has happened. Finally, this paper will give an opinion of whether or not for profit prisons should be dominant over public facilities.
Overcrowding is one of the predominate reasons that Western prisons are viewed as inhumane. Chapman’s article has factual information showing that some prisons have as many as three times the amount of prisoners as allowed by maximum space standards. Prison cells are packed with four to five prisoners in a limited six-foot-by-six-foot space, which then, leads to unsanitary conditions. Prisons with overcrowding are exposed to outbreaks of infectious diseases such as, tuberculosis and hepatitis.
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.
Drug violators are a major cause of extreme overcrowding in US prisons. In 1992, 59,000 inmates were added to make a record setting 833,600 inmates nationwide (Rosenthal 1996). A high percentage of these prisoners were serving time because of drug related incidents.... ... middle of paper ... ...
The goal of private prisons is to be more efficient and runs cheaper than the average public operated prisons. In a public prison, it cost a lot of money for the inmates to be taken cared of, so the plan was to have a prion that is not own by the government, but instead was owned by a owner who would guarantee to run their prison facility for less money, and still provide the same qualities and care as a public prison. However, that isn’t the case now. Private prisons are falling short on actually fulfilling those aspect and requirements. In fact it is relatively hard to determine if there is any difference in the qualities between a private facility and a public facility. The only difference so far is that a private prison is not own by the government and therefore it is more of a business own by an owner who most likely runs...
Shelden, R. G. (1999). The Prison Industrial Complex. Retrieved November 16, 2013, from www.populist.com: http://www.populist.com/99.11.prison.html
The first issue that I would like to address is the overcrowding issues in prisons. In my opinion, overcrowding issues are the biggest issues in our correctional system that concerns every citizen. Running a prison required money, resources and manpower, with overcrowding issues, the government would have no choice but to increase the number of correctional facilities, privatized prisons and increasing manpower. According to (Levitt, 1996), “The incarceration rate in the United States has more than tripled in the last two decades. At year-end 1994 the United States prison population exceeded one million. Annual government outlays on prisons are roughly $40 billion per year. The rate of imprisonment in the United States is three to four times greater than most European countries.” (p.1). Overcrowding issues are not only affect prisons but the society as a whole as well. The reason is simply because prison population directly refl...
Many believed that the US state’s soaring expenditures and special interest politics are pushing states towards record budget deficits, causing a lack of funding towards education, health care, the poor, and even state correction system (Petersilia 2008). It is paramount that out government find ways to utilized government spending wisely towards all the principles mentioned, even towards state correction systems. Our government needs to put individuals in place to analyze prison systems and find ways to resolve the issues with recidivism. From the data collected, the government could learn the best methods of utilizing funding towards innovative programs to help with reform and