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Life on Death Row
The number of inmates in today’s prisons serving time on death row has increased to over 3000 since 1968. This doesn’t necessary mean that more individuals are involved in more criminal activity that would issue them a death sentence But, it has become a very slow process to carry out the sentence to persons convicted by a jury of their peers. This seems to be a growing problem, when an individual is sentenced to death there are certain rights they have in order to protect the convicted persons. With these rights there are problems that affect not only the convicted persons, but the prison …show more content…
Even though the length of time an inmate spends on death row, or the amount of cost it takes to house these inmates, there is another concern, and that would be the overcrowding of the prisons in the United States. A good example, of this ongoing overcrowding problem would be San Quentin, California. In this prison there are currently 580 males and 12 women serving time on death row. This extremely large amount of people on California’s death row is so overcrowded that the prison could stage and execution every day for 19 months including weekends and not exhaust its ranks. John M Glenn (April 2001) Times staff writer, Los Angeles Times. This poses a huge concern with so many inmates on death row, you have to consider safety. In most cases throughout the US a death row inmate could spend up to 23 hours per day in a 6x8 cell. Spending this much time in isolation has a tendency to weigh on the minds of the convicted.(Death Penalty Information Center) During this time there is nothing for the inmates to think about except their current sentence. When you talk about the overcrowding of the prisons, you have to take into consideration the safety of the staff that are hired to ensure and maintain order throughout the prisons. With so many inmates on death row and not enough personnel to protect the property and monitor those convicted, this should allow the states that house these death row inmates to carry out their
Life on Death Row
The number of inmates in today’s prisons serving time on death row has increased to over 3000 since 1968. This doesn’t necessary mean that more individuals are involved in more criminal activity that would issue them a death sentence But, it has become a very slow process to carry out the sentence to persons convicted by a jury of their peers. This seems to be a growing problem, when an individual is sentenced to death there are certain rights they have in order to protect the convicted persons. With these rights there are problems that affect not only the convicted persons, but the prison …show more content…
Even though the length of time an inmate spends on death row, or the amount of cost it takes to house these inmates, there is another concern, and that would be the overcrowding of the prisons in the United States. A good example, of this ongoing overcrowding problem would be San Quentin, California. In this prison there are currently 580 males and 12 women serving time on death row. This extremely large amount of people on California’s death row is so overcrowded that the prison could stage and execution every day for 19 months including weekends and not exhaust its ranks. John M Glenn (April 2001) Times staff writer, Los Angeles Times. This poses a huge concern with so many inmates on death row, you have to consider safety. In most cases throughout the US a death row inmate could spend up to 23 hours per day in a 6x8 cell. Spending this much time in isolation has a tendency to weigh on the minds of the convicted.(Death Penalty Information Center) During this time there is nothing for the inmates to think about except their current sentence. When you talk about the overcrowding of the prisons, you have to take into consideration the safety of the staff that are hired to ensure and maintain order throughout the prisons. With so many inmates on death row and not enough personnel to protect the property and monitor those convicted, this should allow the states that house these death row inmates to carry out their