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Prison system essays
The development of the prison system
Prison system essays
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US Prison System
There are many people who are critical of the US‘s prison sysetm; the idea of locking up those who commit crimes against a society simply to keep them from doing harm. Many say that more rehabilatation is necessary to improve these individuals and, therefore, society as a whole. What are some ways of doing this? Do you agree/disagree with this view and why? Is the prison system currently in place the best option for society? 2 pages, double spaced, 12pt. font.
You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make it drink. Everyone knows that you can’t help someone unless they want to help themselves. When the prison system was first established, the possibilities in rehabilitation were nothing like they are today. They could make prisoners go to daily consueling, have small groups, write in journals, plant flowers…maybe even go to yoga classes or have meditation time so that they could become one with their inner spirits and realize the error of their ways.
Sunday school classes could be offered along with daily preachings, they could beat them with the Bible. None of this would help unless the individual wanted to change into an upstanding citizen.
I agree that rehabilitation should be offered in all ways possible to those who want it. Everyone deserves a second chance, or a hunderath for that matter. I don’t believe that while we are here on earth we have a limited number of times we can fall down. No one, not even the law has the righ...
When envisioning a prison, one often conceptualizes a grisly scene of hardened rapists and murderers wandering aimlessly down the darkened halls of Alcatraz, as opposed to a pleasant facility catering to the needs of troubled souls. Prisons have long been a source of punishment for inmates in America and the debate continues as to whether or not an overhaul of the US prison system should occur. Such an overhaul would readjust the focuses of prison to rehabilitation and incarceration of inmates instead of the current focuses of punishment and incarceration. Altering the goal of the entire state and federal prison system for the purpose of rehabilitation is an unrealistic objective, however. Rehabilitation should not be the main purpose of prison because there are outlying factors that negatively affect the success of rehabilitation programs and such programs would be too costly for prisons currently struggling to accommodate additional inmate needs.
A current recession is forcing people to have to deal with low wages and a horrendous lack of flexibility, in regards to hours. In fear of unemployment, today’s work choose to bear with these conditions instead of demanding for better treatment. In “Why Your Office Needs More Bratty Millennials,” Emily Matchar, the author, claims that the workforce would benefit from adding millennials, those born from 1983-1999, because their aggressive demanding tactics would cause companies to eventually have to adapt. These companies would have to adapt because by 2025, 75 percent of the workforce will be millennials. All of the external sources and numbers, provided by Matchar, don’t back up her claim, resulting in a weak
“It is said that no one truly knows a nation until one has been inside its jails. A nation should not be judged by how it treats its highest citizens, but its lowest ones” (Nelson Mandela, 1994). The United States of America has more people behind bars than any other country on the planet. The prisons are at over double capacity. It cost a lot of money to house prisoners each year. A large number of the prisoners are there because of drug related offenses. There are prisoners who have been sent to prison for life for marijuana related drug offenses. Many prisoners have been exonerated after spending many years behind bars due to the corruption in our legal system. 32 States in United States of America still execute prisoners even though there is no evidence to suggest that capital punishment is a deterrent. Prison reform is needed in America starting at the legal system and then ending the death penalty.
National Institute of Mental Health. “Bipolar.” Patient Education Center. n.p. Feb. 24, 2000. Web. (accessed Oct. 20, 2011)
Canada reached its utmost population rate in 2013, with 15,000 inmates; this is a drastic increase of 75% in the past decade. Incarceration rates are rapidly increasing as crime rates decrease. Upon release, former prisoners have difficulty adapting into society and its social norms. Criminologist, Roger Graef states that, "the vast majority of inmates, the loss of local connections with family, job, and home sentences them again to return to crime." Prisoners often result in lethargy, depression, chronic apathy, and despair, making them ultimately rigid and unable to assimilate back into the public. Depression, claustrophobia, hallucinations, problems with impulse control, and/or an impaired ability to think, concentrate, or remember are experienced by prisoners who are isolated for a protracted amount of time; research has indicated that prisons can cause amenorrhea, aggressive behaviour, impaired vision and hearing, weakening of the immune system, and premature menopause. With the lack of system programs, the constant violence, and the social isolation, the prison system fails to prepare prisoners for reintegration to society. Prisons do not provide the proper structural functionalism to rehabilitate former long-term prisoners into society.
In the essay "Prison "Reform" in America," Roger T. Pray points out the much attention that has been devoted to research to help prevent crimes. Showing criminals the errors of their ways not by brutal punishment, but by locking them up in the attempt to reform them. Robert Pray, who is a prison psychologist, is currently a researcher with the Utah Dept. of Corrections. He has seen what has become of our prison system and easily shows us that there is really no such thing as "Prison Reform"
Hippocrates, a Greek physician, said that the traits and mental illness had to do with the balance of body fluids called humours. There were four of these humours: yellow bile, black bile, phlegm and blood. Hippocrates thought that melancholia was caused by too much black bile in the spleen. He used bloodletting (a supposedly therapeutic technique which removed blood from the body), bathing, exercise, and dieting to treat the depression. The famous Roman philosopher and statesman Cicero argued that melancholia was caused by vi...
Throughout history into today, there have been many problems with our prison system. Prisons are overcrowded, underfunded, rape rates are off the charts, and we as Americans have no idea how to fix it. We need to have shorter sentences and try to rehabilitate prisoners back to where they can function in society. Many prisoners barely have a high school education and do not receive further education in jail. Guards need to pay more attention to the well being of the inmates and start to notice signs of abuse and address them. These are just a few of the many problems in our prison systems that need to be addressed.
“A common news account of mental illness, for instance, involves a sensationalized and violent crime in which an innocent person is killed by a mental health patient. The article is laced with graphic descriptions, emotional diction and a glaring headline. It also depicts the mentally ill person as devoid of social identity and dangerous, capricious, aggressive and irrational” (Fawcett, 2015). In prime time television “characters who were identified through behavior or label as having a mental illness were 10 times more likely than other TV characters to commit a violent crime – and between 10 to 20 times more likely to commit a violent crime than someone with a mental illness would be in real life” (Fawcett, 2015). Besides violence, there is also the inaccurate portrayal of mentally ill people never getting better. There is rarely ever a time where the recovery of a mentally ill person is shown. They often are not given any screen time that shows them integrated into society with jobs and friends (Fawcett,
The “Tough on Crime” and “War on Drugs” policies of the 1970s – 1980s have caused an over populated prison system where incarceration is policy and assistance for prevention was placed on the back burner. As of 2005, a little fewer than 2,000 prisoners are being released every day. These individuals have not gone through treatment or been properly assisted in reentering society. This has caused individuals to reenter the prison system after only a year of being release and this problem will not go away, but will get worst if current thinking does not change. This change must be bigger than putting in place some under funded programs that do not provide support. As the current cost of incarceration is around $30,000 a year per inmate, change to the system/procedure must prevent recidivism and the current problem of over-crowed prisons.
To sum up, I feel like our society is poor in comprehending how mental ill people can dramatically change our lives if they have a bad day and how to help people that suffer from a mental health problem. I believe that we can improve a lot of lives if we obtain a better understanding about this topic. Every member of society and the government should put more effort in providing treatment for the mental ill. A lot of citizens and members of the government realize something has to change about his situation, but it looks like neither of them is going to make a decisive action in the near future.
During Generation Xers formative years, “investigations called into question many major organizations including the U.S. presidency, military, organized religion, and corporations” (Fore, 2013). As a result, this generation generally had little confidence in institutions and instead placed more faith in themselves. At home, Generation Xers became “‘latchkey children’”, who came home from school without a parent or adult supervision, and their mothers now worked outside the home. They were responsible for themselves, and often became dependent on video games and television sets, which resulted in them being characterized as “independent and resourceful” (Fore, 2013). At work, Generation Xers relied on themselves and their peers to accomplish goals, and did not put much hope in companies or organizations. Unlike Veterans, Generation Xers disliked traditional hierarchy, challenged authority, and expected their leaders to demonstrate competence and fairness, as well as embrace a participative and diverse workplace (Fore, 2013). Similar to the Millennial generation, Generation Xers placed a stronger focus on their personal lives much more than the generations before them. “They were likely to stay with one company throughout their career as long as it did not interfere with their private lives” (Gilley & Waddell, 2015). This lack of organizational loyalty is often attributed to
All over America, crime is on the rise. Every day, every minute, and even every second someone will commit a crime. Now, I invite you to consider that a crime is taking place as you read this paper. "The fraction of the population in the State and Federal prison has increased in every single year for the last 34 years and the rate for imprisonment today is now five times higher than in 1972"(Russell, 2009). Considering that rate along crime is a serious act. These crimes range from robbery, rape, kidnapping, identity theft, abuse, trafficking, assault, and murder. Crime is a major social problem in the United States. While the correctional system was designed to protect society from offenders it also serves two specific functions. First it can serve as a tool for punishing the offender. This involves making the offender pay for his/her crime while serving time in a correctional facility. On the other hand it can serve as a place to rehabilitate the offender as preparation to be successful as they renter society. The U.S correctional system is a quite controversial subject that leads to questions such as how does our correctional system punish offenders? How does our correctional system rehabilitate offenders? Which method is more effective in reducing crime punishment or rehabilitation? Our correctional system has several ways to punish and rehabilitate offenders.
Over time society has changed the way they view mentally ill people. In the past, legally mentally ill people were forced into treatment, but recently this forceful treatment has been viewed as inhumane. Forcing someone into treatment legally is tricky
middle of paper ... ... Prisons need to be structured, orderly, isolated and individualized in order to really rehabilitate the offender. Despite the very strict methods needed in order to accomplish prisoner reformation, this type of punishment was still a far cry from the public executions that were popular in earlier history. Policy makers, the public and a new generation of thinkers are now focused on stabilizing American society and improving the conditions of mankind (Rotham), particularly when it comes to the criminal justice system rather than simply demonstrating power and control to try and maintain deterrence.