Wait a second!
More handpicked essays just for you.
More handpicked essays just for you.
The importance of prisons
The importance of prisons
The importance of prisons
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
Why is it necessary to charge a person of a crime before they are imprisoned? It is his or her right to be presented before a jury prior to being sent to prison for what could be a lifetime. In the novel, 1984 by George Orwell, the government uses people called thought police to catch others that are working against them. Since these people are trusted by the government, they have the ability to frame and trick others into committing a crime. In reality, this same situation can happen if the government takes away a person’s right to a speedy and public trial. The system is not fair if someone cannot defend themselves in front of a court. Without a proper defense, a person is vulnerable to abuse of the system by government officials. Therefore, …show more content…
It actually is just a mere guess on the government's half. The ability for the government to put people in prison just because they think that they committed a crime should not be allowed. If there is no proof that someone committed a crime then there can a person who is sent to prison without trial could be confused as to why they are spending time behind bars. This means that they did not actually commit a crime to end up in prison and are just filling space in a cell. Unnecessary imprisonment can cause overpopulation in prisons, this means that prison cells meant for one inmate now are used to bunk two or three inmates. Overall, unnecessary imprisonment has a negative effect on not only the person being imprisoned but on the system as a whole.
However, some may feel that it is necessary to violate a person’s right to a trial. This may help lower a number of future criminals and reduce crime rates. If the government suspects someone of committing a crime they could be right, and. A communist state or totalitarian society would allow for the government to be in control all political matters and the people would not have a say in anything. If there is a situation in which those governments decide that someone needs to go to prison, that person, innocent or not, will end up in
... court, there are only two choices for their fate: confess to a false crime and spend time in jail for it, or don't confess and face either torture until you confess or your execution. It is a lose lose situation. This is true for every person who is tried in front of the court. People became fearful of this and they could do nothing but accuse everyone they can in order to prevent accusation of themselves.
All the laws, which concern with the administration of justice in cases where an individual has been accused of a crime, always begin with the initial investigation of the crime and end either with imposition of punishment or with the unconditional release of the person. Most of the time it is the duty of the members of constituted authorities to inflict the punishment. Thus it can be said that almost all of the punishments are an act of self-defense and an act of defending the community against different types of offences. According to Professor Hart “the ultimate justification of any punishment is not that it is deterrent but that it is the emphatic denunciation by the community of a crime” (Hart P.65). Whenever the punishments are inflicted having rationale and humane factor in mind and not motivated by our punitive passions and pleasures then it can be justified otherwise it is nothing but a brutal act of terrorism. Prison System: It has often been argued that the criminals and convicted prisoners are being set free while the law-abiding citizens are starving. Some people are strongly opposed the present prison and parole system and said that prisoners are not given any chance for parole. Prisons must provide the following results: Keep dangerous criminals off the street Create a deterrent for creating a crime The deterrent for creating a crime can be justified in the following four types Retribution: according to this type, the goal of prison is to give people, who commit a crime, what they deserved Deterrence: in this type of justification, the goal of punishment is to prevent certain type of conduct Reform: reform type describes that crime is a disease and so the goal of punishment is to heal people Incapacitation: the...
Crime control models have been important to the government in the United States because it allows it to keep citizens away from crimes. First of all, Packer’s due process model is a system in which it has a liberal approach in maintaining the rights and liberties of any citizen. According to the textbook crime control in America: what works states that (Worrall, 2015, pg. 26) “due process advocates believe that the government’s job is not first and foremost to control crime, but rather to maximize human freedom, which includes protecting citizens from undue government influence.” The due process model is simply protecting citizens from unfair justice. The government at times makes mistakes in incarcerating people that were believe to be guilty.
In the 1970s, prison was a dangerous place. Prison violence and the high numbers of disruptive inmates led prison authorities to seek new ways to control prisoners. At first, prison staff sought to minimize contact with prisoners by keeping them in their cells for a majority of the day. As time went on, the prison authorities began to brainstorm the idea of having entire prisons dedicated to using these kind of procedures to control the most violent and disruptive inmates. By 1984, many states began construction on super-maximum prisons. In California, two supermax facilities were built by the state: Corcoran State Prison in 1988, and then Pelican Bay in 1989. The federal government soon followed suit and in 1994, the “first federal supermax opened, in Florence, Colorado.” It was not much longer before supermax prisons could be seen all over the country (Abramsky). In Wisconsin’s supermax facility, with similar conditions being found in a majority of supermaxes, there are “100-cell housing units” that are in groups of 25 cells. These cells all face a secured central area. Technology plays a major role in keeping the facility to the highest security standards. Every cell’s doors are controlled remotely and the cells include “video surveillance, motion detection and exterior lighting” (Berge). With these technological securities, there are also procedural precautions. Inmates are kept in their cells for 23 hours a day until their sentences are done. This is said to be for prisoner and staff safety, although some feel otherwise. In 2001, 600 inmates at Pelican Bay went on a hunger strike, demanding reform. Those on hunger strike believed that the isolation and deprivation they faced was against their Eighth Amendment rights. ...
In the criminal court, you are looked upon differently because of the conviction. Everyday life will be hard because you can get rejected from jobs, loans, licensing, traveling out the country, and even housing (Messina). Bail reform to let people who have a charges that is not violent and a treat to the community go into program like a house arrest is more fair than to have them sit in a jail til who knows when the trial is. Staying a jail only will only expenditure more tax people money. As the court system is increasingly taking longer and longer to discharge cases due to shrinking budgets and a rollback on available resources, the possibility of a lengthy pretrial detention only increases, inviting the risk of detainees losing jobs, missing social and familial obligations and incurring social stigma (Reese).
According to Mark Early, president of the Prison Fellowship International, the Bureau of Justice Statistics report shows that there are 19 states that have prisons operating at 100 percent capacity and another 20 are falling right behind them. There is no wonder why the overcrowding of prisons is being discussed everywhere. Not to mention how serious this predicament is and how serious it can get. Many of the United States citizens don’t understand why this is such a serious matter due to the fact that some of them believe it’s not their problem. Therefore they just don’t care about it. Also, some Americans may say that they don’t care about what could happen to the inmates due to repercussions of overcrowding, because it’s their own fault. In order to cure this growing problem people have to start caring about what’s going on, even if it’s to people who might deserve it.
"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.
Overcrowding of prisons due to mass incarceration is among one of the biggest problems in America, mass incarceration has ruined many families and lives over the years.America has the highest prison population rate , over the past forty years from 1984 until 2014 that number has grown by four hundred percent .America has four percent of the world population ,but twenty-five percent of the world population of incarcerated people Forty one percent of American juveniles have been or going to be arrested before the age of 23. America has been experimenting with incarceration as a way of showing that they are tough on crime but it actually it just show that they are tough on criminals. imprisonment was put in place to punish, criminals, protect society and rehabilitate criminals for their return into the society .
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.
It is said that prison should be used for more serious crimes such as rape, assault, homicide and robbery (David, 2006). Because the U.S. Prison is used heavily for punishment and prevention of crime, correctional systems in the U.S. tend to be overcrowded (David, 2006). Even though prisons in the U.S. Are used for privies on of crime it doesn 't work. In a 2002 federal study, 67% of inmates that
Every civilization in history has had rules, and citizens who break them. To this day governments struggle to figure out the best way to deal with their criminals in ways that help both society and those that commit the crimes. Imprisonment has historically been the popular solution. However, there are many instances in which people are sent to prison that would be better served for community service, rehab, or some other form of punishment. Prison affects more than just the prisoner; the families, friends, employers, and communities of the incarcerated also pay a price. Prison as a punishment has its pros and cons; although it may be necessary for some, it can be harmful for those who would be better suited for alternative means of punishment.
In the United States of America today, prison life is becoming worse as the years pass by. Offenders are steady re committing crimes even after initial release from prison. This has become a huge problem for the government of The United States of America and all of it’s residents. We must take different approaches to the way we imprison our inmates so that after their sentence is done, they are less likely to become a repeat offender. Different countries around the world, like China and the Phillipines, use different tactics to make sure that their prisoners are less likely to return.
Prison has been around in human society for many millions of years. Having someone who disobeyed the law of that village, town, city or country punished in some form of institution, cutting them off from people, is a common concept – a popular and supposedly “needed” process society has taken to doing for many years now has been put under the spotlight many times by many different figures and people in society. The question remains – do prisons only make people worse? Many articles have been published in many journals and newspapers of the western world (mainly the USA, UK and Australia) saying prison only makes a person worse yet no complaint of the method has come from the less liberal eastern societies; this only proves how in countries where the rights of humans are valued such issues as if prisons only make people worse are important and relevant to keeping fair to all.
Although it may not seem like a major problem to most people in the United States, prisons are becoming overcrowded, expensive to maintain and have little to no effect on the moral discipline of inmates. The current prison system is extremely inefficient and the purpose of prisons has been completely forgotten. According to Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology, the primary purpose of prisons is to punish, to protect, and to rehabilitate. Not only is there an increase in prisoners, but there is a rise in the number of repeat offenders. Alternatives such as counseling, drug rehabilitation, education, job training and victim restitution must be better enforced and organized. People do not understand the severity of the problem mainly because
Many may ask that if prisons are so terrible and ineffective, why do they persist? Mostly because people won’t think outside the box, but also because a lot of people still believe prisons can be reformed in some magical way that make them good for prisoners. I don’t buy that for a second. There’s also a strong desire for punishment and retribution, and that’s not necessarily bad if it’s kept in