Introduction The correction system in America is in many ways, deeply flawed. The ideology of prison is that it is created with the general purpose of making people better, morally and ethically, it was supposed to be the adult version of time out, take away someone’s freedom as a person for a while and hope that the same person would learn a lesson and change for the better. But in real life, people who get arrested for minor or not so major crimes gets locked up with the murderers and rapists. The convicted may not be such a bad person; he or she could have had a bad day and did some thoughtless regrettable things. But no matter who they were before they entered the correction system, they come out a totally different person, and in most…
The private prison system is a system that allows for private prisons to contract work from corporations by using the prisoners as workers. These workers work for just a few dimes and nickels a day. A former writer for the El Diario La Prensa, in New York, Vicky Pelaez tells the prisoners’ stories for them. In her article titled, “The Prison in the United States: Big Business or a New Form of Slavery?” she points out the negative impact of private prisons on the sentencing of African-Americans and other non-white races in the United States justice system.…
Hi Narinder, I too chose to write about rape in prison. The subject although graphic, gives us a look into a huge population of people that I think that a lot of us tend to forget, unless we have a loved one in there. Maybe it’s our own selfish thinking this this population is no longer a priority so there is no need for us to watch over and protect them As you stated, there is the Prison Rape Elimination Act (PREA), but I am guessing in order for an act to work it would require people speaking out against the crime. Again, this prison subculture is one that is made up of their own set of norms and value system, and embedded in that seems to be a code of no snitching.…
Restorative prisons can help many people beyond the perpetrator despite that fact the perpetrator is the only one being treated in these restorative prisons. According to Bazemore (1998), victims are fine with the offender being treated with restorative justice ways. This supports that the victims will not feel like the offender is getting off too easy in restorative prisons. These prisons also help the community because once the perpetrator is out of the restorative prisons they are part of the working community again. This is an outcome of the perpetrator having to help out around the prison and actually do things versus other prisons where offenders just sit in a cell all day.…
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…
For something to qualify as obsolete, it must be out of date or no longer produced. Angela Davis questions in her book Are Prisons Obsolete whether or not the use of prisons is still necessary or if they can be abolished, and become outdated. Davis raises many questions and challenges about the use of prisons in today’s world. A few of the leading concerns when it comes to prisons is the topic of sexual abuse especially towards female inmates, the idea of prison being a racial institution, and the establishment of prisons for profitable purposes. Criminals have full access to what life in jail is like, but many citizens who have not experienced prison are not fully educated on what actually occurs behind closed doors.…
Today, it has become apparent that the generation of political powers today faces incredible challenges stemmed from the repercussions of policy enacted over two decades ago. Widely associated as making the greatest impact under the Bush and Clinton administrations judicial hardening was well underway in the later years of Bush’s presidency and throughout the entire time in office for Bill Clinton. To begin first, the concept of the Drug war made significant headway in the mandatory minimum sentencing arena and posed significant impact of criminal convictions as well as prison populations throughout the 1980’s and 1990’s. to provide insight on the type of impact this political movement was making throughout the entire United States; according…
Across the United States, various state legislatures have been working to reduce overcrowding in prisons. It has been a problem in numerous places across the country, and the states affected have had to pass legislation that would address and fix the overcrowding problem. Nebraska is one of those states. However, amidst the vast debate over the legality of the death penalty in Nebraska, other criminal justice legislation, such as that of prison reform, is not a topic discussed in every household or establishment. Prison reform, though, is an issue that needs to be fixed sooner rather than later.…
Across the globe correction facilities are overcrowded with adult offenders who account for the majority of criminal activities. Some of these individuals could probably benefit from restorative justice programs, however, community-based corrections will be the best solution for critically overcrowded adult jails and prisons. These institutions at some point will have no choice but to release nonviolent offenders on probation and parole. This is why restorative programs are put in place structured for reducing juvenile recidivism keeping them out of the adult prison population. Juveniles are still growing and have a chance in life if they were guided down the right path, however, in today’s society there are so many youth who are dealing with…
The purpose of this study is to compare the depiction of the US justice and prison systems in film and television across different decades and to compare scripted vs. unscripted depictions. This study is exploratory to determine which variables are prominent in the depictions. Key variables that will initially be under investigation are the guard to prisoner interactions, the depiction of segregation, gender roles, and the way the prison system is shown in general. The debates about the justice system being unjust are growing now more than ever.…
With the U.S. having the highest incarceration rates in the world, Americans are slowly inching towards realizing the effects of this and beginning to think about prison reform. Before any solid, concrete change is to occur, we need to be able to look at the different aspects of the criminal justice system which affects every single person in this country. We must be able to look at what leads up to someone being incarcerated (early life, family ties, social position), the legal proceedings and interactions with law enforcement. We need to be able to look at how people are being sentenced, and what “correctional” really means when it comes to using the term “correctional facilities”. We also need to look at why we have such high recidivism…
The Rise of Big House Nation: From Reform to Revenge exposes the issues faced by prisoners and their strides to be heard and their demands to a better quality of life within the prison system. Parenti discloses that despite the money dispersed into the prison system; prisons remained overcrowded, fugitive and elusive. ‘From reform to revenge’ shows the contrast of American government within the bracket of morality in relation to the prison system and the ideology of what is supposed to be a professional and legitimate penology system. This reading speaks of the prison system and how the conditions have caused it to become more restrictive and less productive in means of reform with time. Parenti glimpses at the prison population and the cause…
Pressing for Prison Reform The prison system is just as corrupt as the prisoners inside them. We live in a world where it is deemed acceptable to punish a criminal by taking away their humanity, and only release them when they find it themselves. We must reform the flawed prison system; only then can we correct the criminal way of life. Today, it is not uncommon to hear intrusive and abhorrent events that happen behind bars, including excessive violence, sexual harassment, health violations, and misconduct of legal power.…
Prison reform, the attempt of improving the conditions inside of prisons also to establish a more beneficial penal system or implement auxiliary to imprisonment; assists the prisoners to prepare better for their second life after their second life after their time serving in prison. At the NAACP’s 106th national convention, on July 15, 2015; Mr. President Obama listed a bunch of reasons that the United States should reform the criminal justice system. And some reasons that the government will look more into the American communities and try to give more opportunity and more rights to all the people in the nation. President Obama has already looking into the situation.…
Prison reform is a significant issue for many Americans. The prison population is expanding at a phenomenal rate, often beyond the capacity of the existing system to accommodate the expanding ranks of the incarcerated. The focus for many is increasingly on rehabilitation as a means to reduce recidivism and consequently reduce the number of individuals who must be placed in prisons every year. In the early 1990s, the number of people jailed in the United States topped one million (Waldman, 2013). By 2000, that number had doubled, and by 2003 more than 2.2 million people were living in prisons (Associates, 2005).…