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Essay On Alternatives To Incarceration

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Incarceration is an institution that costs taxpayers in the United States approximately $39 billion dollars annually; in the last 23 years, inmates convicted of drug related charges made up one third of prison populations while inmates convicted of violent crimes constituted one fourth of the population. A significant amount of money is dedicated to keeping non-violent criminals in prison, when the majority of drug related cases could be dealt with appropriately and without the extreme costs, as well as overcrowding, releasing of dangerous criminals, and the lack of rehabilitation to stop future crimes. Alternatives to incarceration for non-violent, non-serious drug related crimes introduce a solution to a multifaceted problem in America. Solutions such as …show more content…
They’re realistic, and as more and more numbers and evidence supporting them appear, their development is continually skyrocketing. The National Association of Drug Court Professionals declared 946 working drug courts with 441 in the process of being made. States like California have served as a model for the effectiveness of the programs; “Arrest rates for participants who completed the program declined by 85 percent, conviction rates by 77 percent and incarceration rates by 83 percent” (Bailey, Alternative to Incarceration). A Drug Treatment Alternative to Prison (DTAP) program in New York, 2 out of each 100 offenders were rearrested for drug crimes within six months of release compared to 2 out of each 1,000 participants in a DTAP arrangement (National Institute of Justice, Program Profile: Drug Treatment Alternative to Prison). Mental health courts in Oklahoma also report that “the offenders are released only to be picked up again for another violation” when not given the option of an actual treatment plan to prevent dependency driven crimes like drug possession or shoplifting (Bailey, Alternative to

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