Introduction: The United States prison industry is unlike any other in the world. It is very expensive and is largely ineffective in reducing the crime rate and the rehabilitation of its offenders. The Prison Policy Initiative, a nonprofit organization devoted to finding the hidden impacts of society’s reliance on incarceration, discovered in a recent study that the average incarceration rate for the United States in 2014 was “716 out of 100,000 people”, whereas the rest of the world is around “155 out of 100,000 people” (Wyler). According to a report that examined the catastrophes of mass incarceration released by the White House, the U.S. prison population has increased 220% between 1980 and 2014 despite there being a drastic …show more content…
The extreme increase in prison population has caused the annual spending on prisons to increase 3% each year over the last 10 years (Wyler). For several decades, policies have been put into place suggesting the way to ensure public safety is through the incarceration. Although the crime rate has decreased while the incarceration rate has increased, research done by Bruce Western, a member of the Sociology Department of Princeton, suggests “only ten percent of the crime decline was due to the increase use of incarceration” (Pager et al). Western’s findings prove incarceration is not the most efficient way to make communities safer. There are many ways policymakers can help right now: make funding more available for investing into the education system, employment services, and housing, that will create safer and healthier …show more content…
Robert Rubin interviewed many inmates from the San Quentin Prison and they all said that “increasing the chance of freedom has changed the way they behave in prison” (Rubin). The change in attitude has caused many of the inmates to try and learn the skills and behaviors that will help them in life on the outside; however, the current system only gives them $200 on their release with no suitable place to live, no help finding work, and no help adjusting to life outside of the prison walls. With society already placing a stigma on ex-convicts, it is a very difficult and nearly impossible task for them to assimilate back into the American society. More than 650,000 ex-offenders are released from prison every year in hopes of freedom; however, studies completed by the U.S. Department of Justice show that roughly two-thirds will likely be rearrested within three years of release (USDOJ). Without being given a job, money, or a place to live, ex-offenders experience the same pressures and temptations that caused them to be incarcerated in the first place. There are different ways that can result in a more successful and smoother transition back into the mainstream society. First, the educational opportunities within the prisons need to be enhanced. The majority of prisons only offer some level of basic education and G.E.D. preparation,
Mandatory minimums for controlled substances were first implemented in the 1980s as a countermeasure for the hysteria that surrounded drugs in the era (“A Brief History,” 2014). The common belief was that stiff penalties discouraged people from using drugs and enhanced public safety (“A Brief History,” 2014). That theory, however, was proven false and rather than less illegal drug activity, there are simply more people incarcerated. Studies show that over half of federal prisoners currently incarcerated are there on drug charges, a 116 percent percentage rise since 1970 (Miles, 2014). Mass incarceration is an ever growing issue in the United States and is the result of policies that support the large scale use of imprisonment on
The United States has a larger percent of its population incarcerated than any other country. America is responsible for a quarter of the world’s inmates, and its incarceration rate is growing exponentially. The expense generated by these overcrowded prisons cost the country a substantial amount of money every year. While people are incarcerated for a number of reasons, the country’s prisons are focused on punishment rather than reform, and the result is a misguided system that fails to rehabilitate criminals or discourage crime. The ineffectiveness of the United States’ criminal justice system is caused by mass incarceration of non-violent offenders, racial profiling, and a high rate of recidivism.
The book titled Beyond Bars: Rejoining Society After Prison offers invaluable lessons of how both men and women may successfully depart prison and return to society. The book was written by Jeffrey Ross and Stephen Richards, both of whom are college professors and criminal justice experts. The population of prisons across the United States has increased dramatically in recent decades despite overall crime rates decreasing during the same time period. Approximately seven million American people are in some form of correctional custody. Between the years1980 and 2000, America’s prison population increased by 500 percent. During the same time period, the number of prisons grew by 300 percent (Ross and Richards, xii). Close to 50 percent of people admitted to confinement have previously served time, exemplifying that the criminal justice system “recycles” inmates through the system again and again (Ross and Richards, xi). Unfortunately, many convicts simply do not remember how to or are ill-equipped to return to society once their sentence ends. Ross and Richards, through their valuable lessons within their book, seek to lessen the problems that ex-prisoners may face when released from prison.
Education has been proven to reduce recidivism rates and increase the success of an offender’s re-integration into society. In a study conducted in 1994 by the American Bureau of Justice Statistics, nearly half of the 302,309 released offenders surveyed in fifteen different states were convicted of a new crime within three years of their release. This data shows that prison fails to properly rehabilitate offenders, since after prison ex-convicts continue to live in a way th...
In recent years, there has been controversy over mass incarceration rates within the United States. In the past, the imprisonment of criminals was seen as the most efficient way to protect citizens. However, as time has gone on, crime rates have continued to increase exponentially. Because of this, many people have begun to propose alternatives that will effectively prevent criminals from merely repeating their illegal actions. Some contend that diversion programs, such as rehabilitation treatment for drug offenders, is a more practical solution than placing mentally unstable individuals into prison. By helping unsteady criminals regain their health, society would see an exceptional reduction in the amount of crimes committed. Although some
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.
In todays society the United States has the highest incarceration rate in the world. This high incarceration rate is due to the growing phenomena known as mass incarceration. This phenomenon has led to massive increase of people being placed in prison and the amount of money being used for these prisons. The book, Race to Incarcerate by Marc Mauer, focuses on mass incarceration as our default social policy because of the weak welfare state in the U.S. In the book Mauer discusses the causes and the problems with this policy.
Harris, H. (2017, March). The Prison Dilemma: Ending America's Incarceration Epidemic. Foreign Affairs, pp. 118-129.
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
While the media, politicians and the big business enterprises fuel the need to “jail them all,” Palen offers a bit of a different reasoning for today’s prison problems. According to Palen, there were steady decreases in urban crime in the years 1993 through 2010. Then beginning in the mid 2000’s, murder and robberies increased at alarming rates, particularly within city limits. While Dyer focuses on these for profit corporations as proponents of increased prison populations, another perspective is that people became complacent in fighting crime because the numbers of crimes were going down and a decrease in federal funding resulted in less law enforcement on the streets reacting to criminals. Once society realized complacency and inadequate funding would not address the “safety of the streets,” more laws were put in place and more funding was pumped into the prison and jail system.
According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics, in the year 1980 we had approximately 501,900 persons incarcerated across the United States. By the year 2000, that figure has jumped to over 2,014,000 prisoners. The current level of incarceration represents the continuation of a 25-year escalation of the nation's prison and jail population beginning in 1973. Currently the U.S. rate of 672 per 100,000 is second only to Russia, and represents a level of incarceration that is 6-10 times that of most industrialized nations. The rise in prison population in recent years is particularly remarkable given that crime rates have been falling nationally since 1992. With less crime, one might assume that fewer people would be sentenced to prison. This trend has been overridden by the increasing impact of lengthy mandatory sentencing policies.
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
Trachtenberg, B. (2009, February). Incarceration policy strikes out: Exploding prison population compromises the U.S. justice system. ABA Journal, 66.
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