Getting old is difficult even in the best of circumstances, but getting old in prison—now that is a real challenge. The United States has a growing need for geriatric healthcare services because of the aging baby boomer population, and the situation is no different in the prison system; however, the prison population will get significantly lower quality care than the rest of the population, and so will these aging baby boomers inside prisons. Healthcare for elderly inmates is a controversial issue sparking debates about death penalty, higher taxes and the mandatory minimum sentence requirements, so inmates are aging and dying in prison and the cost is not cheap, the controversy surrounding this issue makes it hard to come up with a solution. …show more content…
Prisons are overcrowded, with inmate populations over 2 million Americans the report goes on further to say the four jurisdictions with the highest actual number of prisoners age 50 and older are California (27,680), Texas (27,455), Florida (17,980), and the federal prison system (25,160)” (American Civil Liberties Union, 2012). According to Sari Horowitz in an article for the Washington Post titled The painful price of aging in prison, “Prisoners 50 and older represent the fastest-growing population in crowded federal correctional facilities” (Horowitz, 2015). As the numbers of aging inmates go up, the demand for healthcare also increases. It is hard to pinpoint why our prisons are so crowded. The major topics of discussion seem to be our countries get though on crime attitude, harsher sentencing policies and the declining number of criminals receiving the death …show more content…
“The motto of the DOC is care, custody, and control, and the DOC tends to slide toward custody and control. Care is often viewed with some suspicion” (Penrod). Inmates in a state prison become wards of the state, and while they don’t have access to privately funded healthcare, they do have a constitutional right to tax-payer funded healthcare. For aging prisoners this cost is very high. The 2012 Report by the ACLU states “Because of healthcare and physical needs that prisons are ill-equipped to handle, each aging prisoner on average costs taxpayers $68,270 per year—approximately double what it costs to incarcerate an average prisoner” (2012). Because the elderly prison population is increasing, the demand for prison healthcare is increasing, leading to more costs and, eventually, higher
California has one of the most dysfunctional and problematic prison system in US. Over the last 30 years, California prison increased eightfolds (201). California Department of Correctional and Rehabilitation (CDCR) does little to reform prisoners and serve as human warehouse rather than a correction institution. California's prison system fails the people it imprisons and society it tries to protect. In many cases, California's prison system exacerbates the pre-existing problems and aids in the formation of new problems for prisoners. This paper discuses the criminogenic effects of overcrowding, and reduction/elimination of programs and how it negatively affects California and the ballooning prison population and possible remedies.
As we know the federal government spends a large portion of our budget on the maintaining of prisons. During the 2011 fiscal year it cost nearly $29,000 to house a prisoner in a state penitentiary per year as stated by the Federal Register. The funds that are estimated to keep a prison running end up running over the prediction causing them go over budget. We can account for this because according to The Price of Prisons|Oklahoma on Vera.org, here in the state of Oklahoma the Oklahoma Department of Corrections called for $441.8 million taxpayer dollars in the 2010 fiscal year. The actual cost for the maintenance of the prisons called for $453.4 million taxpayer dollars. This is about $11.6 million taxpayer dollars over the set budget for the year. This proves that there are too many things that need to be taken care of in these facilities. Much of the money went to paying employee benefits and to capital costs which is also stated in this article. Instead of using the money to pay for employee benefits they should be using it to pay for what the inmates need. This causes a strain on citizens because they are obligated into paying more taxes. The money being used on prison employee benefits could be going to other programs such as education and Social Security which would benefit more
The proliferation of prison overcrowding has been a rising concern for the U.S. The growing prison population poses considerable health and safety risks to prison staffs and employees, as well as to inmates themselves. The risks will continue to increase if no immediate actions are taken. Whereas fighting proliferation is fundamentally the duty of the U.S. government, prison overcrowding has exposed that the U.S. government will need to take measures to combat the flaws in the prison and criminal justice system. Restructuring the government to combat the danger of prison overcrowding, specifically in California, thus requires reforms that reestablishes the penal codes, increases the state’s budget, and develops opportunities for paroles to prevent their return to prison. The following context will examine and discuss the different approaches to reduce the population of state prisons in California in order to avoid prison overcrowding.
While, equality of healthcare provision in America continues to be a leading topic of debate. Healthcare rights for incarcerated persons are largely absent from this national conversation. Healthcare affordability and accessibility to quality treatment, medicine and doctors remains a priority across all ages, races, genders and political parties. Because “the state” is given the power of autonomy from the provision of law under the federal government, it should be the responsibility of “the state” to provide adequate healthcare services and treatment to persons who are incarcerated.
The overpopulation in the prison system in America has been an on going problem in the United States for the past two decades. Not only does it effect the American people who are also the tax payers to fund all of the convicts in prisons and jails, but it also effects the prisoners themselves. Family members of the prisoners also come into effect. Overpopulation in prison cause a horrible chain reaction that causes nothing but suffering and problems for a whole bunch people. Yet through all the problems that lye with the overpopulation in prisons, there are some solutions to fix this ongoing huge problem in America.
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.
“Prison Overcrowding: The Problem.” American Legislative Exchange Council. ALEC-American Legislative Exchange Council, 2013. Web. 18 Nov. 2013.
The past two decades have engendered a very serious and historic shift in the utilization of confinement within the United States. In 1980, there were less than five hundred thousand people confined in the nation’s prisons and jails. Today we have approximately two million and the numbers are still elevating. We are spending over thirty five billion annually on corrections while many other regime accommodations for education, health
Prisons require an abundance of money to be run properly and effectively. By using taxes to pay for prisons the American public pays to support the lives of inmates and all of their needs. Prisoners require food, drink, beds, supplies for doing other activities and all of the overlooked things in normal life that go along with these necessities. Inmates have special needs like all of us do. Inmates reguire medical care, for example some have AIDS or other diseases that require medicine which cumulate large bills over time.(Luzadder) Imagine the money amassed over a life sentence of paying for medicine. The American public pays for all of these expenses added to the actual building of the prison f...
Overcrowding in our state and federal jails today has become a big issue. Back in the 20th century, prison rates in the U.S were fairly low. During the years later due to economic and political factors, that rate began to rise. According to the Bureau of justice statistics, the amount of people in prison went from 139 per 100,000 inmates to 502 per 100,000 inmates from 1980 to 2009. That is nearly 261%. Over 2.1 million Americans are incarcerated and 7.2 million are either incarcerated or under parole. According to these statistics, the U.S has 25% of the world’s prisoners. (Rick Wilson pg.1) Our prison systems simply have too many people. To try and help fix this problem, there needs to be shorter sentences for smaller crimes. Based on the many people in jail at the moment, funding for prison has dropped tremendously.
An estimated 650,000 offenders are released from prisons each year. Most generally leave with only a few dollars, some clothes, and possibly a bus ticket. Release practices like this are common and can be especially disastrous for mentally ill inmates. If immediately released without access to health care, the mentally ill will suffer from interruption of continuity of care. In prison, they may have been receiving medication, therapy, or other forms of treatment. Interruption of care could lead to excelled deterioration in their mental health. This tends to lead to a higher rate of recidivism among mentally-ill former prisoners. (Hummert, 2011.).
The program imposed an additional $540,631 of costs above what would have been spent to incarcerate these offenders in an institutional facility. Specifically, the Bureau of Prison compared the daily minimal cost to house an offender in a minimum-or-low-security facility. It estimated a cost of $20.08 and $24.32 per day. The program also factored the average cost paid per day to the private companies contracted to monitor offenders while on home detention. The cost ranged from $34.86 to $47.76 per day. Consequently, by the year 2030, the Bureau of Prison will find themselves in an economic crisis and responsible for elderly prisoners. It is estimated that in 2030, 33 percent of the inmate population is projected to be elderly. However, the advantages of granting elderly offender early release have certain advantages. The federal government could save taxpayer money by reforming its elderly release program. By allowing an early release of aging offenders who pose no substantial public safety threat can be costly. For instance, by encouraging the Bureau of Prison to expand the use of its compassionate release policy can eliminate one of the biggest health care problems facing
Many citizens in the general public would consider the living conditions of correctional facilities to be either too luxurious or too savage. Few would relatively contemplate the conditions to be in between assumptions. For an example in the article, Ross presents the myth of most convicts being provided sufficient health care benefits. However, due to the limitations of
Firstly, in order to gain a better understanding of the problems that plague or correctional system we must fully understand the enormous overcrowding problem that exist in the majority of or state and federal prisons. Since 1980 the prison population has quadrupled and only the numb...
The first issue that I would like to address is the overcrowding issues in prisons. In my opinion, overcrowding issues are the biggest issues in our correctional system that concerns every citizen. Running a prison required money, resources and manpower, with overcrowding issues, the government would have no choice but to increase the number of correctional facilities, privatized prisons and increasing manpower. According to (Levitt, 1996), “The incarceration rate in the United States has more than tripled in the last two decades. At year-end 1994 the United States prison population exceeded one million. Annual government outlays on prisons are roughly $40 billion per year. The rate of imprisonment in the United States is three to four times greater than most European countries.” (p.1). Overcrowding issues are not only affect prisons but the society as a whole as well. The reason is simply because prison population directly refl...