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Historical prison reform measures in the us
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In recent decades, violent crimes have been on a steady decline however, the number of americans dealing with the americans justice system keeps getting higher. The incarceration rates in the united states has skyrocketed in the last thirty years. In a speech on criminal justice at Columbia University, Hillary Clinton says that, “It’s a stark fact that the United States has less than five percent of the world’s population, yet we have almost 25 percent of the world’s total prison population. The numbers today are much higher than they were 30, 40 years ago despite the fact that crime is at historic lows.” (washington post) How could this be? Are americans more prone to criminal activity than the rest of the world? That’s one possible explanation, …show more content…
In fact private prison were primarily used as a tool for decreasing the amount of prisoners in prisons operated by the government.The privatization of prison can really be traced all the way back to the declaration on the “war on drugs” in the 1970s and “tougher sentencing platform in the 1980s.” (Lilly) This led to a massive spike in the number of people getting incarcerated. Government maintained facility could not keep up with the increasing number of inmates therefore, in 1984 the Government hired the Corrections Corporation of America to oversee its first facility in Hamilton County, Tenn. …show more content…
How does the government know that there will be enough inmates to fill their requirement you ask. Well the government will just make it harder for an american to be a free citizen. According to the naacp criminal fact sheet, “ Combining the number of people in prison and jail with those under parole or probation supervision, 1 in every 31 adults … is under some form of correctional control.”The government influenced by lobbyist make laws explicitly made for keeping existing people in jail and adding new ones to the system. Among the laws aimed at expanding the prison population and increasing the profits of special interest corporations are “three-strike laws (mandating sentences of 25 years to life for multiple felony convictions) and “truth-in-sentencing” legislation (mandating that those sentenced to prison serve most or all of their time).” (Whitehead) Basically, Since the government is now required to maintain the prison population high they started to introduce laws to more severely punish nonviolent offenders. Nonviolent crimes are defined as property, drug, and public order offenses which do not involve a threat of harm or an actual attack upon a victim. Typically, the most common nonviolent crimes are drug trafficking, drug possession, burglary, and larceny. thus the war on drugs continues. (Department of Justice) The modern war on drug is a perfect
In the report “Mass Incarceration: The Whole Pie” attorney Peter Wagner and policy analyst Bernadette Rabuy confirm “[t]he American criminal justice system holds more than 2.3 million people,” a fifth of which for a drug offense, most nonviolent. Why is it that the so called “Land of the Free” has so many of its citizens behind bars?
Drug policies stemming from the War on Drugs are to blame, more specifically, the mandatory minimum sentencing mandates on petty drug charges that have imprisoned millions of non-violent offenders in the last three decades. Since this declaration of war, the percentage of drug arrests that result in prison sentences (rather than probation, dismissal, or community service) has quadrupled, resulting in an unprecedented prison-building boom (Wyler, 2014). There are three main reasons mandatory minimum sentencing laws must be reformed: (1) They impose unduly harsh punishments on relatively low level offenders, leading to the mass incarceration epidemic. (2) They have proven to be cost ineffective fiscally and in crime and drug use reduction. (3) They perpetuate a racially segregated criminal justice system that destroys communities and discourages trust
It is a contract between the governmentally controlled facility, where the private facility will bear responsibility for management and finance while the government will focus on sentencing, health care and drug treatments. According to the text, Corrections in the 21st Century by Frank Schmalleger, private prisons were outlawed during the early 1900’s but it came back into action when public prisons were over-populated and in a financial deficit. Many turned to private investment where the owner would regulate the facility while charging for each bed. Indeed, the business flourished and expanded to what we know today as private prisons. The three leading private facilities in the United States are Corrections Corporation of America, Wackenhut Corrections Corporation of America and Cornell Corrections Inc. The Corrections Corporation of America was the first private facility to develop and their goal was to lease beds to the government because their prisons were over populated. “Nearly ten percent of the United States prison have been privatized, housing almost 200,000 thousand inmates” (Barber, Corrections Project
Companies such as Corrections Corporation of America & GEO Group are selling their services as a worry-free solution to dealing with the incarcerated population, while saving money in the process. Some of the tactics private prisons use to save money are understaffing, not training staff, lax security measures and even allowing cable TV versus hiring more guards. These tactics do not work, as researchers from the U.S. General Accounting Office show “no substantial evidence” was found in proving that for-profit prisons conserve taxpayer dollars. In Arizona, prisons were privatized with one stipulation; it must save money. The state’s own data contradicted the idea, with the per-inmate cost in private prisons as high as sixteen-hundred dollars greater per diem, or three and a half m...
In recent decades, violent crimes in the United States of America have been on a steady decline, however, the number of people in the United States under some form of correctional control is reaching towering heights and reaching record proportions. In the last thirty years, the incarceration rates in the United States has skyrocketed; the numbers roughly quadrupled from around five hundred thousand to more than 2 million people. (NAACP)In a speech on criminal justice at Columbia University, Hillary Clinton notes that, “It’s a stark fact that the United States has less than five percent of the world’s population, yet we have almost 25 percent of the world’s total prison population. The numbers today are much higher than they were 30, 40
Over the past several decades, the number of prison inmates has grown exponentially. In 1980, prison population had numbers around half a million inmates. A graph of statistics gathered from the U.S. Bureau of Justice shows that between 1980 and 2010, the prison population grew almost five times, topping out at nearly 2.5 million. According to an article in The New York Times, the average time spent in jail by prisoners released in 2009 increased by 36% compared to prisoners released in 1990. Many people, such as those at Human Rights Watch, believe that the increase of these numbers has been because of tough-on-crime laws, causing prisons to be filled with non-violent offenders. This rise in crime rates, prison population, and recidivism, has led politicians as well as ordinary citizens to call for prison reform.
Today, half of state prisoners are serving time for nonviolent crimes. Over half of federal prisoners are serving time for drug crimes. Mass incarceration seems to be extremely expensive and a waste of money. It is believed to be a massive failure. Increased punishments and jailing have been declining in effectiveness for more than thirty years. Violent crime rates fell by more than fifty percent between 1991 and 2013, while property crime declined by forty-six percent, according to FBI statistics. Yet between 1990 and 2009, the prison population in the U.S. more than doubled, jumping from 771,243 to over 1.6 million (Nadia Prupis, 2015). While jailing may have at first had a positive result on the crime rate, it has reached a point of being less and less worth all the effort. Income growth and an aging population each had a greater effect on the decline in national crime rates than jailing. Mass incarceration and tough-on-crime policies have had huge social and money-related consequences--from its eighty billion dollars per-year price tag to its many societal costs, including an increased risk of recidivism due to barbarous conditions in prison and a lack of after-release reintegration opportunities. The government needs to rethink their strategy and their policies that are bad
today’s first private prisons. Initially being built to reduce overcrowding and cut cost from the regular
There are many pros and cons to trying to reducing the number of overcrowding of prisons in the United States. Many would be opposed to the early release of those who have committed even menial crimes without thought to the issue of overcrowding. The solution isn’t to keep building new prisons, but to have prisons, law makers and rehabilitative programs all work together for the main goal of public safety. In order to maintain public safety, certain measures need to be taken to make sure those who are being released are no threat and that those who would pose a risk, are kept behind bars. Between the costs that are associated with imprisonment, parole and probation and the programs needed to rehabilitate, the problem of prison overcrowding
The United States of America has the world’s highest incarceration rates, for several reasons. The United States of America doesn’t necessarily possess any unique strict laws in comparison to other countries of the world, yet we still have the highest incarceration rate in the world. More federal level and state level prisons are built in order to control and hold more prisoners because most are reaching its full capacity. The United States of America’s “crime rates” increased about 40 years ago when there became a new focus in the areas of crime. The President of the United States of America at the time Richard Nixon used the term “a war on drugs” in order to shed light on public health due to substance abuse. Initially, these policies created
Should prisons in the United States be for profit? How do for profit prisons benefit the United States? Would inmates rather be in private or public correctional centers? What kind of affects does this have on taxpayers? What are the pros and cons of profit prisons? These are many of the questions that are brought up when discussing for profit prison systems. There are different perspectives that can be taken when it comes to talking about for profit prisons. This paper will discuss some of the ways that the United States has started to become for profit and why it has happened. Finally, this paper will give an opinion of whether or not for profit prisons should be dominant over public facilities.
The goal of private prisons is to be more efficient and runs cheaper than the average public operated prisons. In a public prison, it cost a lot of money for the inmates to be taken cared of, so the plan was to have a prion that is not own by the government, but instead was owned by a owner who would guarantee to run their prison facility for less money, and still provide the same qualities and care as a public prison. However, that isn’t the case now. Private prisons are falling short on actually fulfilling those aspect and requirements. In fact it is relatively hard to determine if there is any difference in the qualities between a private facility and a public facility. The only difference so far is that a private prison is not own by the government and therefore it is more of a business own by an owner who most likely runs...
Although America holds only five percent of the world’s population, it contains 25 percent of the world’s incarcerated population which is why reform needs to be made in order to bring down incarceration rates which will in turn lower costs paid by American citizens.
Whether or not Supermax prisons, short for super-maximum security prisons, are more crucial and longer lasting, the question has been if these prisons are useful in applying lessons learned into criminals. Supermax prisons hold some of the most dangerous criminals convicted. Supermax prisons have been known to have their pros and cons. The common pros of supermax prisons was the separation of gangs as well as many other prisoners who act out in violence commonly. Although many may say that these kind of prisons are considered “concentration” and “dispersion”, supermax prisons are often needed to maintain relief of the criminals not acting out. The effectiveness of supermax prisons is what many debate on, which have made many different arguments
There is no need to reduce the number of prisoners held in US prisons. Proponents for the prison system to remain the way it is feel they have the solutions for overcrowding and all the problems that come with overcrowding, such as building more private prisons. The Corrections Corporation of America (CCA) believes that they have the solutions. They partner with the federal corrections agencies to alleviate the overcrowding issues and provide all services needed in corrections management. They design, construct, expand and manage prisons, jails, detention facilities, residential reentry services and inmate transport. Another reason to support private prisons is the number of jobs it creates for people. The CCA has 13,000 employees. CCA believes that they provide multiple benefits to the communities they serve through them paying taxes and providing stable employment and job growth. They also offer various reentry and rehabilitation