Prison Overcrowding Problem

The prison system in the United States faces many problems. The problems vary from financial problems, the safety of the guards and inmates, prisoners’ mental health, gang activity, and overcrowding. Overcrowding is arguably one of the main problems that prisons face, with mental health and financial problems being other problems that are often addressed, and even tie in with overcrowding. Overcrowding happens when there is an excess amount of prisoners that aren’t able to be suitably fit into prison since prisons are full and have limited space. Overcrowding messes up the prison norm, because while limited amount of prisoners can be maintained, overcrowded amount of prisoners brings many problems.
Overcrowding has been a recent issue over the past years. “Researchers have determined that some of the causes of prison overcrowding are harsher penalties for criminal activities, changes to laws that make new actions illegal, high recidivism rates and needed improvements to the penal system” (“Prison overcrowding”). With society changing everyday, there are going to …show more content…
Overcrowding also has its psychological consequences on the prisoners. If being in a cage for hours in a day hasn’t taken a toll on a prisoner’s mental health, now they have to deal with sharing it with another prisoner or deal with more prisoners around them. Arnold Schwarzenegger, a previous governor of California, says that “overcrowding causes harm to people and property, leads to inmate unrest and misconduct” (“Prison Overcrowding State”). This quote expresses that overcrowding makes inmates disturbed, physically harming them and mentally. An example of this would be an increase of stress on the prisoners, even the guards. “When you are stressed you may experience many different feelings, including anxiety, fear, anger, frustration and depression” (“Stress”). Stress can lead into other symptoms which will only worsen prisoner’s life in