Nov 13, · Prison Reform the United States. The average felony sentence imposed upon federal and state offenders in was 62 months, or just over 5 years. On average these prisoners actually serve 45% of a state sentence for a mean prison stint of 2 years and 4 months, and 85% of a federal sentence for a stint of 4 years and 5 months Aug 12, · Land reform and Agrarian Reform Pages: 3 ( words) What is law reform?Law reform is adaptations made to legislation and laws Pages: 9 ( words) The Stanford Prison and BBC Prison Experiments Comparison Pages: 2 ( words) Comprehensive Immigration Reform Pages: 9 ( words) Native Title Law Reform Australia Pages: 4 ( words) The birth of the penitentiary in Latin America: essays on criminology, prison reform, and social control, / edited by Ricardo D. Salvatore and Carlos Aguirre
Responsible Prison Reform | National Affairs
Prison Reform The United States criminal justice system houses the largest prison population in the world; both in terms of the total prison population as well as the proportion of prisoners to the total population per capita.
The United States has a bigger prison population than China and India despite having nowhere near the total population. It also holds a greater percentage of its population in incarceration than any other country in the world as well including such nations such as Russia, North Korea, or even Iran.
The United States has about five percent of the world's population however it has about twenty-five percent of the world's prison population. There are many stereotypes that uphold the image of the inmate, prisoner, or felon as a violent criminal, that must be locked away to keep the population safe. However, in many cases, the actual prison population is made up of a wide range of crimes and many of these crimes are non-violent.
In fact, in the United States houses just a small percent of prison population who was convicted of a violent crime, prison reform essay. Many people are imprisoned for seemingly minor offenses just as failure to pay child support, motor vehicle violations, missing court, drug offenses, prison reform essay, and even for failure to pay debts Maag, This analysis will look the need from prison reform from different perspectives and note some of the costs to society that this phenomenon has caused on different levels.
Figure 2 - International Comparison Project America, N. The War on Drugs has actually become so unpopular in public opinion polls that President Obama stopped referring to the criminalization of people for drug charges as the "war on prison reform essay. Furthermore, the ineffective War on Drugs has also ushered in a number of social changes. When a person is incarcerated for drugs it often leaves a broken family or community in its wake, prison reform essay.
Furthermore, once a person is incarcerated then this shows on their permanent record and can prevent them from finding decent employment. Therefore, not only does the War on Drugs devastate families, prison reform essay, but it can also ensure that criminals are subjected to a life of poverty. Instead of giving people the treatment they need to overcome their drug problem, they are criminalized and this can impact their social capacities for their entire lives.
Instead of getting drug users the help that they need, if treated like a diseasethey are sent to prison.
As a result there is a high rate of recidivism and some drug users never receive treatment as opposed to punishment. Criminal correction spending is outpacing budget growth in educationtransportation and public assistance, based on state and federal data; only Medicaid spending grew faster than state corrections spending, which quadrupled in the past two decades, according to the report by the Pew Center on the States Moore, The U, prison reform essay.
is spending unprecedented amounts of money to grow the prison system to house prisoners, while missing the real issues that are contributing to the drug epidemic. There are other models in the world that have been shown to be more effective than incarceration in treating drug use. Many of these approaches treat alcohol and drug use as diseases One example of a more liberal approach to dealing with drug use can be provided by Portugal.
InPortugal decriminalized all drugs in the country including cocaine and heroin. Data collected since this time has drug usage has not increased whatsoever and possibly even decreased slightly Greenwald, Another effect of decriminalizing the drugs is that it brings treatment programs into public discourse where they prison reform essay more socially accepted and less stigmatized.
There ample examples of more effective policies reforming the prison prison reform essay could be positively influenced by reforming the War on Drug policies, prison reform essay. Prison Privatization Because of the growing prison population and the expense related to housing this population, some states have looked to privatize their systems.
Since the s the prison population in the United States has grown at a rate that has no historical precedent that can be found in history The Justice Policy Institute, The management of prisons was traditionally conducted by public officials who were accountable to the public, prison reform essay.
However beginning in the s a trend emerged that began replacing publically managed prisons with private sector counter parts. The private companies prison reform essay been able to reduce some of the costs of housing prisoners, however the costs associated with housing criminals is only one of the costs to society.
The largest private company is known as the Corrections Corporation of America CCA and became a publically traded in on a major stock exchange Schneider, prison reform essay, From corporation's perspective, the rate of criminalization and the resulting prison reform essay population determines their potential for profitability.
Thus a corporation has an incentive in keeping prisoners behind bars. Rising occupancy rates are the way in which the market can offer financial growth. However, this only represents one part of the equation. The additional expenditures in state run prisons often go to the care and rehabilitation of the prisoners.
Many state run prisons provide vocational opportunities such as learning to weld, plumb, or even auto mechanics and are better prepared to reenter society as prison reform essay productive member. By contrastprison reform essay, the opportunities are more limited in privately operated prisons due to the emphasis on cost savings.
Prisoner Abuse and Neglect There have prison reform essay many experiments that study the psychological implications of the prison experience. One of the most famous experiments in social psychology was conducted at Stanford University in which created a fake prison environment on the school grounds Zimbardo, The prison experiment had to be stopped after just six days because the experiment became somewhat unstable as the prisoners were under significant amounts of stress and the guards where acting in near sadistic ways to the prisoners.
The abuse of prisoners is not only limited to psychological damages. Since courts have been incarcerating citizens at a rate with no historical precedent, the federal prison system has been unable to keep pace with the stream of inmates and in some locations the extensive prison network is operating roughly forty percent above capacity McLaughlin, With prions operating way over their capacity there is an increase in violencethe spread of Hepatitis is increased, and there are also increased reports of rape and inappropriate sexual conduct.
The living conditions that the prisoners must endure in such circumstances can significantly contribute to the damage that the prisoners are subjected to psychologically. Figure 5 - Prisoners Housed in a Gym in California McLaughlin, Conclusion The United States criminal justice system houses the largest prison population in the world; both in terms of the total prison population as well as the proportion of prisoners to the total population per capita. However, in the United States houses just a small percent of prison population who was convicted of a violent crime and many prisoners are held incarcerated for the War on Drugs or other non-violent acts.
A large majority of these prisoners could be better rehabilitated in different venues and there are costs of this punishment on the individual, the community, and the society in general from not using more effective options.
It has seemed like the system definitely focuses more on punishment than rehabilitation and this is a costly position for the public, prison reform essay. Criminal correction spending is outpacing budget growth in education, transportation and public assistance, based on state and federal data.
Works Cited Chang, C. North Louisiana family is a major force in the state's vast prison. Retrieved prison reform essay NOLA.
Greenwald, G. Drug Decriminalization in Portugal, prison reform essay. Cato Institute. Head, T. Key Facts About the War on Drugs. htm Maag, C. In Missouri, debtors prison is alive and well. The average felony sentence imposed upon federal and state offenders in was 62 months, or just over 5 years. Once they are released, the recidivism rates are high.
According prison reform essay Lin. Prisons Reform Prisoners? America has experienced a huge increase in the number of people who are imprisoned over the past few decades. The increase has particularly been fueled by the increase in violent crimes throughout the society. The American criminal justice system has experienced increase in the number of people who are imprisoned annually despite the enactment of tougher policies to deal with crime and increased efforts towards reforming prisoners.
Prisons An analysis of the purposes for prisons in the U. justice system. The prison reform essay system in America has historically fluctuated between prison reform essay dedicated to incapacitation, rehabilitation, and to being punitive in nature. They can serve all three of these functions at the same time. Current trends in criminal justice remain focused on punitive justice that fosters prison environments lacking rehabilitative services, but recent scholarship and public policy have indicated a slight.
Prison Reduction of Prison Population Current impact Population affected Government Policies. Effectiveness of Policies Efficacy of the strategies This paper highlights the prison system and relates multiple factors to it.
It gives a brief background of the topic and then describes the U. crises of prison system. In addition to this, it highlights various factors related to the prison population prison reform essay Indiana.
After that, this paper focuses on the present situation of the prison system and then. Prisons Before the American Revolution, the penal system in the colonies was brutal and harsh, prison reform essay. Capital punishment was normative, and crimes were defined rather arbitrarily. As Edge points out, the colonial American mentality deemed "every crime a sin and every sin a crime," p. Not going to church on Sundays was sometimes viewed as a punishable offense Edge After the Declaration of Independence was signed and the Constitution.
Duncan's thesis on the attractions of prison is more psychologically grounded, however. People seek constraints and limits, just as they are imprisoned by societal standards and limits, or Foucault's notion of the Panopticon. The criminal is also a kind of fantasy-child for society, according to Duncan.
Like a child, prison reform essay, a criminal dwells in a kind of in-between space, a place where anything is possible, and redemption is possible. The American. Learning Tools Study Documents Writing Guides About us FAQs Our Blog Citation Generator Flash Card Generator Login SignUp.
Download this Research Paper in word format. Excerpt from Research Paper : Prison Reform The United States criminal justice system houses the largest prison population in the world; both in terms of the total prison population as well as the proportion of prisoners to the total population per capita. Read Full Research Paper. Prison Reform the United States Words: Length: 10 Pages Topic: Criminal Justice Paper : Prisons Reform Prisoners Words: Length: 2 Pages Topic: Criminal Justice Paper : prison reform essay Prison Life and Strategies to Decrease Recidivism Upon an Inmates Words: Length: 8 Pages Topic: Criminal Justice Paper :
Am I not human? A call for criminal justice reform - Marlon Peterson
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Aug 12, · Land reform and Agrarian Reform Pages: 3 ( words) What is law reform?Law reform is adaptations made to legislation and laws Pages: 9 ( words) The Stanford Prison and BBC Prison Experiments Comparison Pages: 2 ( words) Comprehensive Immigration Reform Pages: 9 ( words) Native Title Law Reform Australia Pages: 4 ( words) True prison reform, however, must extend beyond prison walls and into the communities that receive convicts upon their release. In any given year, between , and , former inmates are unleashed upon society — a massive number of people to habituate to the patterns of normal life The Importance of Prison Reform Essay Words4 Pages In this world we live in many feel that prisons exist to punish, not counsel, offenders. That may be true that Prisons exist for punishment, but they also have an important contribution to make to reducing re-offending by engaging prisoners in rehabilitation programs and purposeful work
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