California’s overcrowded prisons are a result of one of the highest recidivism rates in the nation . In order to alleviate stress on correctional facilities and to make them efficient, public safety realignment was passed by the legislation in 2011. The act of the realignment is shifting responsibilities of most offenders from state facilities to county facilities, and the possible changing of the duration of sentences. In 2011, the courts found the overcrowding of the prisons to be unconstitutional because they were not able to fully accommodate the inmates . There is also the possibility that a new approach to addressing recidivism could yield different results.…
Haney 2006, found that overcrowding results in correctional administrators implementing policies and procedures that may enable instead of relieving problems that may occur within a prison environment. Unfortunately this trend is evident between mentally ill offenders, because they often face the difficult task of adjusting and conforming to correctional policies. Furthermore, when a prison is also facing overcrowding it can intensify these problems. Thus, considering that mentally disabled inmates tend to become irate and violent in overcrowded prisons, it has become routine to place these individuals in solitary confinement to separate them from others within the facility (Ball, 2014). But while the Supreme Court condemns long term solitary…
As of today the United States has a total of 2.3 million people in 1,719 state prisons, 102 federal prisons, 942 juvenile correctional facilities, 3,283 local jails, and 79 Indian Country jails as well as in military prisons, immigration detention facilities, civil commitment centers, and prisons in the U.S. Territories. Overcrowding prisons and not enough staff are becoming a serious issue in America. Everyday more citizens are committing crimes that lead them in either prison or jails. And overcrowding prisons lead to having four to five inmates to a cell, which being that close to other criminals can cause violent behavior. It can also cause lack of privacy, which can cause mental health problems and possibly even increase suicide rates and self-harm.…
In a recent New York Times article, titled “A 90s Legacy that is Filling Prisons Today” by Timothy Williams, it primarily focuses on people who are serving long sentences for crimes, which are keeping them locked up in prisons for numerous years. Williams writes that the criminal justice system within the United States seems hand out long sentences without the possibility of parole or giving prisoners opportunities for resocialization. Within this cover story, Williams used a real example on how the criminal justice system gives it’s prisoners a restless feeling. Lenny Singleton had a crack habit back in the 1990s and robbed multiple stores within two weeks, which resulted with him a life sentence without the possibility of parole. This story continues to state that the increase of incarceration is becoming a problem.…
Mass incarceration is a unique way of saying that the United States has locked up a tremendous amount of the population in state and federal prisons, and even local jails. The U.S currently locks over 2.2 million human beings in cages, and many are for nonviolent offenses. What is this issue about? Mass incarceration rates continue to rise. There are spaces in the prisons and jails where there are situations such as no beds available.…
America’s prison culture has been targeting minorities, underclass people, and drug addicts unfairly and for far too long. Mass incarceration is a system that captures people, then labels them as criminals and felons, keeping them locked up for extensive periods of times only to release them into the underclass where there is no hope to achieve higher living. Since the introduction of the War on Drugs in the 1970’s by Ronald Reagan, where “over four decades, the [Drug Policy Agency} says, American taxpayers have dished out $1 trillion on the drug war”, the influx of prisoners increased 700 percent. Black Men are singled out for imprisonment 5 times more than white males. On a global scale comparison, America accounts for 25% of incarceration…
The practice of mass incarceration in the state prison system is an epidemic that stretches far beyond the stringent sentencing guides that are imposed by the state legislatures. This crisis is one that is attributed throughout all levels of the government. As a result, America has suffered both economically and socially because of mass incarceration. The United States prison population has more than quadrupled due to harsher penalties for non-violent offenses (Mass Incarceration in the USA). The data shows that one out of every four human beings are locked up in the “land of the free”.…
Tabitha Jackson SPC 3513 Dr. Lindsay December 2, 2015 Our Prison Population The United States has more citizens incarcerated than any other country in the world (ACLU). According to the American Civil Liberties Union, between 1978 and 2014, the prison population grew over 400% (ACLU). This number means that one in 110 people in the United States are incarcerated in our prisons or local jails (ACLU). An even more staggering number, one in 35 people in the United States is under some type of correctional control, from jail, parole, or probation (ACLU).…
In 2011, the Supreme Court issued a judgment stating that California had to decrease its prison population by 2013. This put the pressure on the state to come up with an idea and fast. What they proposed was an act called the Realignment Act. The main characteristic of this new legislation is the majority of the authority to make sentencing and arresting decisions goes back to the county jails instead of the state prisons (Stelloh). In this case, the counties are now able to decide whether they would like to enforce community resources as a punishment or rehabilitation instead of sending the convict straight to a state prison.…
Fewer Americans are going to prison. First, the cost of conserving a prison is high. The text states, “...is the associated cost of maintaining prisons and the recession in the U.S. from December 2007 to June 2009. Between 2011 and 2012, prisons in a number of states had to shut their doors, and many prison building projects were abandoned due to rising cost, notes the Times.” Second, the prisons are crammed full of people.…
The use of incarceration stayed pretty constant from the mid 1920’s through the mid 1970’s. Then, from the mid 1970’s up to 2008, the incarceration rate increased every year. The biggest incarceration trend was from 1980 to 2009 when the state and federal rates increased fourfold (Bohm & Haley, 2011). The biggest characteristic of the incarceration population is that 9 out of 10 inmates in prison are males.…
Why is overcrowding in prisons becoming such a huge problem? The overcrowding of prisons became problematic starting in the early 1980’s as the federal and state laws over sentencing policies shifted into having stricter punishments for criminal activities (BOOK, pg. #). The increase in the length of sentencing for prisoners are causing prisons to become dramatically overcrowded as prisoners are forced into remain in the prison system for a long period of time even though there are new prisoners continuing to enter through the system (article What can we do about prison overcrowding). The prison population as whole has rapidly increased to forty-one percent since 2000, even though the rate of correctional officers within the prison has only…
The judicial system was buckling down on different drug offenses such as crack-cocaine, marijuana and opium. In 1985 marijuana was marked as the nation’s “number one problem” when it came to drug abuse. More people started using excessive amounts of marijuana since there was a decriminalization law. Eventually, it reached a high of sixty-four percent; programs and treatments were brought upon such as D.A.R.E (Drug Abuse Resistance Education) and G.R.E.A.T (Gang Resistance Education and Training). These programs were not just for adults, these were mainly targeted towards the youth so they will be pushed in the right direction.…
Prison Overcrowding Name: Sepehr Sadrameli Instructor: Dr.Dionne Peniston Course: Courts Systems & Practices Fall 2016 Identification of the problem Prison overcrowding is a common problem in different countries throughout the world including the United States. It refers to a phenomenon that occurs when demand for prison spaces in a particular jurisdiction exceeds the capacity of the institutions (Hough, Allen & Solomon, 2008). Prison overcrowding occurs when courts in a country when the rate of incarceration exceeds the rate at which the justice system releases prisoners, or the prisoners die thus freeing up space for new entrants.…
Prison overcrowdings have been and is one of the main key component factors of poor prison circumstances around the globe. Since 1981, prisons and jails have a huge continuous increase despite the decrease in both crime rates as well as the number of people arrested. It has been the biggest problem faced by the prison systems; its effects can become life threating making prisons are unable to prevent proper functions. “Prison overcrowding, is the aggressive “tough on crime" approach taken by policymakers, criminal justice administrators, as well as the courts since the mid-1990s. A series of laws aimed at increasing penalties and reducing the discrepancy between the court-imposed prison term and the actual time served by an inmate has lengthened…