Research states that the United States has the largest incarceration rate in the world. The prison population rate had increased immediately after 1970 with increase number of 1.3million inmates while the incarceration rate increased with number of 400 per 100,000 (Clear et al., 2013). However, there seems to be little relationship between the crime rate and the incarceration rate.
The United States prison overcrowding results from the increment in the rate of arrest and the approach to sentencing as the major means of punishment. Most prisons are relatively small and can only house a particular number of prisoners for a particular period of time compared to the high rate of incarceration by the criminal justice system. The system keeps inmates in prison for a longer period of time. The population rate of prison depends on the offender’s sentence by the judge and the prisoners release rate in an observed period. According to admission and discharge data, trends in the length of …show more content…
This reform has greatly changed the landscape of federal sentencing and the composition of the federal prison population. As of 2006, 56% of federal prison inmates were incarcerated for narcotics offenses. The United States Sentencing Commission Guidelines, and mandatory minimum statutes were all enacted in an attempt to make sentences more proportional, more uniform, and less disparate (Hartley, R. D., 2008). However, since the latest manifestation of war on drugs, the prison population has increased steadily. In 1980, only six percent of state prisoners had been convicted of a drug offense; today, the percentage is higher in both state prisons (14.4%) and federal prisons (51.4%) (Clear et al., 2013). This reform has strengthened differential criminality where white men reported they uses drug five times more than African American, but African American men get punished on drug 13.4 times more than whites (Clear et al.,
The United States prison overcrowding results from the increment in the rate of arrest and the approach to sentencing as the major means of punishment. Most prisons are relatively small and can only house a particular number of prisoners for a particular period of time compared to the high rate of incarceration by the criminal justice system. The system keeps inmates in prison for a longer period of time. The population rate of prison depends on the offender’s sentence by the judge and the prisoners release rate in an observed period. According to admission and discharge data, trends in the length of …show more content…
This reform has greatly changed the landscape of federal sentencing and the composition of the federal prison population. As of 2006, 56% of federal prison inmates were incarcerated for narcotics offenses. The United States Sentencing Commission Guidelines, and mandatory minimum statutes were all enacted in an attempt to make sentences more proportional, more uniform, and less disparate (Hartley, R. D., 2008). However, since the latest manifestation of war on drugs, the prison population has increased steadily. In 1980, only six percent of state prisoners had been convicted of a drug offense; today, the percentage is higher in both state prisons (14.4%) and federal prisons (51.4%) (Clear et al., 2013). This reform has strengthened differential criminality where white men reported they uses drug five times more than African American, but African American men get punished on drug 13.4 times more than whites (Clear et al.,