Summary Of Coping With Crowding

Prison crowding has become an immense issue over the past years as crimes rates and incarceration rates increase. Meanwhile, all attempts to solve this predicament have been short term or ineffective answers. The article entitled “Coping with Crowding: The Prison Response the Crowding Crisis,” an excerpt from the American Journal of Criminal Justice, Bernard J. McCarthy discuses why the issue arose and demonstrates how the prison system has made attempts to solve the issue using options that do not result in lasting effects. As he says, the current policies in place have been used by default for the ease of things. This has been to avoid the underlying tasks of planning to achieve actual results. He points out that the current systems have …show more content…
This being to expose the policies of criminal justice in the attempts to solving crowding and their failures. As crime rates increase, the growing problem becomes more and more of a concern. McCarthy acknowledges that the department of criminal justice has a very obvious problem in developing a policy to resolve the issue. He addresses the issue as being attempted to solve with short term strategies instead of coordinated worldwide solutions. He then outlines the three policies that the Department of Justice is currently using to solve the problem and why they do not do the job. The main policies highlighted in the article are population diversion strategies, system expansion strategies, and population reduction strategies. After demonstrating the main idea behind current policies, he further breaks them down providing background and analysis to prove why they are failing so miserably. He shows different points of view within the system to expose all aspect of the policies in attempt to make his arguments full circle rather than simply one-sided. McCarthy reviews other existing problems that do not necessarily work closely to the prison crowding problem. An example of such is how law enforcement, prosecutors, judges and correctional agencies could change policy in attempt to affect the crowding problem. Such issues should be information enough to demonstrate that the system 's failures lie within …show more content…
It would definitely be a very important reference in the topic of examining present policy. The author shows little flaw in his work and does extremely well at identifying the underlying issues with the system and using them as his main points. He further explores them and gives them a full analysis incorporating many outside sources and many points of view other than his own. The author takes a clear stance that is supported with more than enough evidence and offers an exceeding amount of details about the present solutions. It is an article that would be useful in educating readers with only base knowledge of the subject because of his clear and concise arguments. It helps to incite inquisitions about the shortcomings and lack of thought from the Department of Justice. The person researching can use this article to construct a strong background section about what policies are currently in place. Because of its concise and clear arguments presented with strong and numerous sources, and its high acclaim, it is a very astronomical ranked source to be used in