Better Ways to End Prison Overcrowding

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The U.S is only 5% of the world’s population and houses a quarter of its prison inmates; well over 2 million people. In the past decade the war on drugs has filled many state and federal prisons with a numerous amount of inmates. Building new prisons is not the answer to tackling the prison overcrowding dilemma. The U.S doesn’t have the money due to economic strains, and it will not solve this issue head on as needed. “California may be forced to release up to 33,000 prisoners by 2013” (Shapiro & Wizner, 2011, p.1.). Some women and men do not belong in prison, and should be given other opportunities to sought help. Prison overcrowding is a growing concern in the U.S today. There are many different alternatives to end prison overcrowding versus releasing them into the community. For example by launching a parole support group or treatment or rehabilitation programs for inmates as well as ex-offenders, house arrest or probation are other routes to explore.
“During the 1970’s and 1980’s mental hospitals had a fiscal crisis and thousands of people with schizophrenia and other mental illnesses who had been institutionalized for years had been released by the courts. These individuals no longer met the standard for forcible incarceration because they were not dangerous or in need of supervisory treatment any longer. As a result a large amount of people with mental illnesses or were socially fragile were let go from hospitals lacking psychiatric and social work follow up, and many stopped taking their medications” (Shapiro & Wizner, 2011, p.2-3). In 2002, New York City along with New York’s mental health and parole supervision agencies based a nonprofit organization called Project Renewal. This program assisted ex-offenders that had ment...

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...t of people who return back to a law breaking mentality after they get released from prison. When you release people instead use these alternatives versus confinement it is less of a waste of expensive resources, taxpayer’s money, as well as time. A medium between control and treatment needs to be met in all of the prisons, or jails. Some men or women need more strict conditions and supervision practices while others may just need more of the services that should be offered such as rehabilitation, and alcohol or drug prevention. Any of these options will not be easy nor diminish this overcrowding issue quickly. It will take time, patience, and cooperation with both the inmates or ex-offenders family, friends, courts as well as law enforcement and jails.

Works Cited

Shapiro & Wizner (2011). Better Ways to End Prison Overcrowding Than Just Releasing Inmates, 1-4.

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