Prison Overcrowding Essay

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Intro Prison houses offenders that violate the law. Some are serious and others not so serious, some are in prison for committing index one crimes (e.g. murder, robbery, larceny) and others commit index two crimes (e.g. Embezzlement, Fraud, Disorderly conduct,). When looking at prisons from the outside they seem big and they can hold thousands of inmates, unfortunately the capacity of prisons seem to fill up quickly. When prisons reach their capacity and inmates start to sleep on the floor or in the corner because there is no bed space available, which is why prisons are overcrowded. The United States has always relied on the law to be followed and when an individual breaks the law he/she is punished mainly by incarceration (Griffin III, …show more content…

Previous research had shown that more than two million inmates are incarcerated in America; with that being said America exceeds any other industrialized country when it comes to inmates (Brazell, Crayton, Mukamal, Solomon, & Lindahl, 2009). Brazell et al., continue to explain that further research shows that one in every one hundred persons in America is currently imprisoned (2009). Unfortunately because of the high incarnation rates, prison overcrowding has become one of the main problems the Criminal Justice System is facing, in 2010 there had been a 55% increase in prison populations in Federal and State institutions (Hall, 2015). Prison overcrowding did not become an issue overnight this has been an issue for quite some time, literature that was reviewed concerning the issue on prison overcrowding reveals that the problem originated in the 1970s and continued to increase (Griffin III, Johnson, & Pitts, 2013). America has experienced an increase in the number of individuals being incarcerated in the past couple of decades (Kendrick, 2011). Knowingly incarceration has been the primary form of punishment for offenders who commit crimes. Some individuals would honestly argue that incarceration is being overused (Ross, 2010), in a way that it shows a lack of use for other resources that are designed to help offenders avoid

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