Budget cuts in prison are affecting mental health care for prisoners. Budget cuts are eating away the funding for mental health care "police officers in Reno with mental health counselors to reach out to the mentally ill, whether they’ve committed crime, are a threat to themselves, or could be in the future ,and are Already starved for services, troubled citizens sometimes tumble into homelessness and alcoholism and tussle violently with police, who are usually ill-equipped to help them"(Kihmm). They will not be able to receive the proper medication they need. These inmates that are ill are just finding bad ways to not feel the sickness they have. Most of the ex cons just go back to jail, because of there mental illness. There untreated mental …show more content…
This would be eliminated as part of a proposed budget-cutting plan, "Executive director of the Texas department of criminal justice, warned that the $294.3 million in cuts requested by state leaders, will likely increase recidivism, cause significant growth in the prison population, negatively impact both supervision in the community and security within our institutions, and more than $50.4 million could disrupt operations"(Livingston). Prison guards losing their job is terrible, the prisons will be more dangerous. This will also cause so many unemployed American citizen 's, and thus making taxpayers pay more money, because they will have to collect unemployment. Without the parole officers the inmates that were originally with them will have the freedom to do whatever they want , because there 's going to be less of them than there is inmates in the parole system. More guards are being put in dangerous positions, because of the laying off of all the other guards. The guars are really out numbered now more than ever, and feel even more unsafe. Its not just the guards that are being laid off, the people that work in the cafeteria are being laid off as well. This is a huge problem, because it will take twice as much longer to get your food. This could cause the inmates to get aggressive with each other, or cause them to try and cut in line, and …show more content…
Instead of prisoners just sitting in a cell doing nothing, why not put them to work, "Every inmate that works saves taxpayers $5,000 a year"(Smith). There are prisoners that work in greenhouses, that generated $57 million in revenue. As budget cuts rise working prisoners become more and more valuable. Inmates are finding ways to save money by recycling there old mattress, that would of end up in landfills. Some prisons even have their inmates help clean up dirty parks around them. While the prisoners are doing this they are learning skills , that will help them with different jobs. Prisoners that do a good job get rewarded with money bonuses. Prisoners learning how to be more responsible and understand how to become a better person will help them in the up coming future. With the prisoners getting paid for bonuses for good work this will make it feel as if it’s a real job. The experience that the inmates are receiving will help them with jobs once they are released from prison. Prisoners will strive to do better with the bonuses they are receiving, and will understand again what its like work. Now with this happening this will ensure the prisoners will have a better and healthier
The United States Parole system has been the longest running form of rehabilitation of inmates that have served time in the prison system. Parolees are granted parole by a committee that feel like the individual is ready to function normally back into society; in which case most are “maxed out” of the system, meaning that there is no more room in the prisons and due to good behavior within the prison walls these are the prisoners that are paroled out. Caseloads are at an all-time high due to the fact that parole officers are over worked and under paid, therefore there it is easier for the ex-cons to re-offend due to the lack of supervision that should be taking place. More often are the parolees just being released into society without supervision
In 1814 Francis Scott Key described America as “the land of the free and the home of the brave.” Does that still hold true today? The United States has less than 5% of the world’s population, yet houses roughly a quarter of the world’s prisoners. That means it has 751 people in jail for every 100,000 in population. If you only count adults one in every 100 Americans is locked up. In 2012 the U.S. spent 677,856,000 billion dollars on national defense, that’s nearly 7.5 times the amount spent on education. If more money was spent on education there would be a better chance that people won’t end up incarcerated. About half of the prisoners in the United States are sentenced for non-violent crimes. The population of federal prisons has increased
American prisoners receive free medical attention, housing, meals, utilities, use of exercise equipment, and laundry services. The cost of these services amount in the billions of dollars a year and government budgets are straining to accommodate these fiscal requirements. “There’s special urgency in prisons these days,” “As state budgets get constricted, the public is looking for ways to offset the cost of imprisonment” (Brown). This economic concern requires work programs to aid in the relief of financial burdens incurred from convicted criminals. Once found guilty of a crime the prisoner needs to take responsibility for the costs incurred. Prison labor has evolved from the day of hard labor, breaking rocks, and making license plates to manufacturing, data processing, electronics, farming, construction, and even customer relations. Prisoners in America need to work, not to be confused with slavery, for economical, recidivism, and responsibility concerns. Work programs are crucial if taxpayers are tired of paying the cost for prison's financial liability, prisoner's family support, and release support programs.
The number of Americans that are in prison has elevated to levels that have never been seen before. Prisons in the US have always been crowded ever since the first prison was invented (Jacobs and Angelos 101). The first prison in the US was the Walnut Street Jail that was built in Philadelphia in 1773, and later closed in the 1830’s due to overcrowding and dirty conditions (Jacobs and Angelos 101). The prison system in modern US history has faced many downfalls due to prison overcrowding. Many private prison owners argue that the more inmates in a prison the more money they could make. In my opinion the argument of making more money from inmates in prisons is completely unconstitutional. If the private prisons are only interested in making
We also need to concentrate on programs and treatment facilities that can be utilized instead of sending people to prison. This can and has been done. When Ronald Reagan was governor, he reduced the prison system by 30 percent, mainly through sentencing reforms (Price). We cannot simply look for a quick and easy solution to this problem, such as releasing prisoners early. We need to start at the bottom, figure out how we got to this point, and address the problem there.
Maybe if I saw more reports on how prison has improved our society and the criminals who live among us, I would see why we should work on reforming our prisons. Until then, it does not seem to be working. We trust in the government to provide for our safety, but we must take responsibility among ourselves. To understand that the current system does work and that its intent is not to provide a safe society. History has shown us that. What we have done or continue to do will not make this a safer place to live. The problem is not to reform our prison system, for this won't stop criminals to commit crimes, but to find ways and means to deteriorate them from doing the crime.
Since crime keeps occurring, more and more prisons need to be built and kept running for the increasing numbers of inmates that are pouring into prisons. Prison may be part of the solution, but there are other alternatives to help criminals. If we were to incorporate facilities like drug rehabilitation and job training into the criminal justice system, then crime would be greatly reduced. Prisoners would commit fewer crimes after the experience of these facilities, therefore reducing the cost of building and maintaining prisons. The end result will be that the American taxpayer's dollars will be available to go to more productive things than prisons.
The United States has the highest incarceration rate in the world and of that over sixty percent of jail inmates reported having a mental health issue and 316,000 of them are severely mentally ill (Raphael & Stoll, 2013). Correctional facilities in the United States have become the primary mental health institutions today (Adams & Ferrandino, 2008). This imprisonment of the mentally ill in the United States has increased the incarceration rate and has left those individuals medically untreated and emotionally unstable while in jail and after being released. Better housing facilities, medical treatment and psychiatric counseling can be helpful in alleviating their illness as well as upon their release. This paper will explore the increasing incarceration rate of the mentally ill in the jails and prisons of the United States, the lack of medical services available to the mentally ill, the roles of the police, the correctional officers and the community and the revolving door phenomenon (Soderstrom, 2007). It will also review some of the existing and present policies that have been ineffective and present new policies that can be effective with the proper resources and training. The main objective of this paper is to illustrate that the criminalization of the mentally ill has become a public health problem and that our policy should focus more on rehabilitation rather than punishment.
In the 1970s and 1980s, a massive amount of inmates began fillin up the United States prison systems. This huge rate of growth in this short amount of time, has greatly contributed to the prison overcrowding that the United States faces today. In fact, the prisons are still filled to the seams. This enormous flood of inmates has made it practically impossible for prison officials to keep up with their facilities and supervise their inmates. One of the main reasons why many prisons have become overcrowded is because of states’ harsh criminal laws and parole practices (Cohen). “One in every 100 American adults is behind bars, the highest incarceration rate in the world” (Cohen). The amount of inmates in corrections systems, throughout the nation, sky-rocketed to 708 percent between 1972 and 2008. Today, there are about 145,000 inmates occupying areas only designed for 80,000 (Posner). Peter Mosko, “an assistant professor of Law, Police Science and Criminal Justice at New York’s John Jay College of Criminal Justice” (Frazier) stated, “America, with 2.3 million people behind bars, has more prisoners than soldiers” (Frazier). There have been studies that have shown “there are more men and women in prison than ever before. The number of inmates grew by an average of 1,600 a week. The U. S. has the highest rate of crime in the world” (Clark). Because of this influx in inmates, many prisoners’ rights groups have filed lawsuits charging that “overcrowded prisons violate the Constitution’s 8th Amendment ban on cruel and unusual punishment” (Clark). It is clear that the United States corrections system needs to be reformed in order to eliminate this problem. Prison overcrowding is a serious issue in society due to the fact it affects prison ...
Throughout history into today, there have been many problems with our prison system. Prisons are overcrowded, underfunded, rape rates are off the charts, and we as Americans have no idea how to fix it. We need to have shorter sentences and try to rehabilitate prisoners back to where they can function in society. Many prisoners barely have a high school education and do not receive further education in jail. Guards need to pay more attention to the well being of the inmates and start to notice signs of abuse and address them. These are just a few of the many problems in our prison systems that need to be addressed.
According to Goomany & Dickinson (2015), there are many concerns that prison may not be an applicable setting for prisoners to be rehabilitated. Many prisoners have pre-existing mental health complications, and prison life can lead to deteriorating mental health issues, increased severity of the disease, and increased risk of prisoners harming themselves. In fact, mental health problems within the prison system are the leading cause of illness for prisoners. Scheyett, Parker, White, Davis, & Wohl (2010) states “A recent report by the United States Department of Health and Human Services indicates that an estimated fifty-six percent of state prison inmates had symptoms or recent history of a mental health problem; forty-seven percent of these reported three or more symptoms of major depression, compared with 7.9% of the general population of the United States” (p. 301). Research has shown that inmates that experience mental health issues are far higher than other prisoners in the general population to commit suicide during their first week of incarceration. Moschetti, Stadelmann, Wangmo, Holly, Bodenmann, Wasserfallen, & Gravier, (2015) comments that 35.1% of prisoners examined during a recent survey suffered from some form of mental disorder and among all inmates forty percent had at least one physical chronic health
...to be done is our facilities should emulate Mckean prison. Mckean's inmates are denied freedom but they have the ability to teach themselves trades, get drug treatment, and meet god. If we treat convicts like humans they will respond as humans. We cannot dehumanize them anymore and expect our communities to benefit from it. It does not work. There is no need to build more prisons, they need to decrease the rate of throwing non-violent offenders in prison. These offenders could do community service and be under house arrest where they still have the ability to hold their families together, so the vicious cycle does not continue. All I can stress is our system needs reform soon. We can only prepare for it, society's ills has already created these predators. Therefor, we need to push for new plans and theories on how we can shape tomorrow's flowers before they bloom.
Although it may not seem like a major problem to most people in the United States, prisons are becoming overcrowded, expensive to maintain and have little to no effect on the moral discipline of inmates. The current prison system is extremely inefficient and the purpose of prisons has been completely forgotten. According to Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology, the primary purpose of prisons is to punish, to protect, and to rehabilitate. Not only is there an increase in prisoners, but there is a rise in the number of repeat offenders. Alternatives such as counseling, drug rehabilitation, education, job training and victim restitution must be better enforced and organized. People do not understand the severity of the problem mainly because
Prison inmates should be able work and spend time doing community service to contribute to society to repay for their wrong doing and develop a better character. This practice is available in some prisons and has so far, been proven effective. Labor for inmates should not be mandatory, but should be something the inmates are allowed to consider. By being able to function in the workplace, inmates will overtime develop a better sense of common knowledge in regards to being responsible and doing the right thing, be able to function in the workplace and in society, and get paid after their sentence for all of the work they’ve done.
The opposing side contends that if society gives the low-skilled jobs to prisoners, they will be taking away possible job opportunities from the good people in the community. While this scenario may have some merit, in the long run, society as a whole will benefit financially from the prisoners working. By working, they will be reimbursing the taxpayers investment in them, as their labor will contribute to the overall community workforce. Studies have also shown that by allowing the prisoners to adjust to life outside of the penitentiary, there is a significant decrease in the number of inmates who will likely be incarnated once again, saving the general public money that would have been spent to keep returning inmates in prison for a second or third time around (Gilligan, 2012). More than four out of ten people are re-incarcerated, so additional money is being spent on the same person (Johnson, 2011). There is a greater chance of avoiding this outcome if the prisoner were trained to function in the real world, rather than being completely isolated in...