Alternatives to Prison
Prisons, facilities maintained for confining people convicted of committing crimes, were used to rehabilitate offenders while keeping them isolated from the community. The Quakers built the first prison in 1790 in order to seclude criminal offenders from society to think about their wrongdoing and to seek forgiveness in a kind, and spiritual environment. (Inciardi 497)
Currently, there are three types of prisons within the Federal, State, and County governments. These are categorized by the degree of security they provide. Minimum security prisons, which are also known as county jails, provide minimal supervision. These jails are generally used as holding cells for offenders awaiting trial or release. Medium security and maximum security prisons are utilized for the offenders serving a sentenced amount of time for their offenses. Their levels of security and prison design are more intense than the minimum security prisons.
The effectiveness of prisons has decreased due to progressive overcrowding, and the lack of conclusive alternatives. The need for alternatives has grown immensely over the last decade. Nonetheless, the State and Federal governments are desperate for competent, less expensive solutions. Costs of keeping a prisoner imprisoned vary among states and facilities.
Each prisoner kept in minimum-security prison generally costs us approximately $25,000 per year, while a prisoner held in a maximum-security prison costs between $35,000 to $74,862 per year. (Smolowe 56) These costs include basic transportation to and from the prison, infirmaries, kitchens and dining area, power plants used for electricity, sewage disposal, prison schools, labor buildings and locations, and salaries for the staff members. As the prison costs increase, the chance of layoffs among personnel increases, which would ultimately result in more violence and much less rehabilitation. In 1993, 21 correction agencies opened 48 new institutions, adding 42,899 beds at an average cost of $47,153 per cell. (Jacobs et al. 120) "In an era of tight money, spending on construction and operations of prisons is increasing twice as fast as the growth in overall spending". (Holmes 3) These rising costs are another reason alternatives to prison are being pursued.
In 1980, the United States housed 329,821 total inmates in State and Federal prisons. (A...
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..., we should consider utilizing these alternatives with the less serious criminal offenders to prevent the seriously violent criminals from being released early from prison. Otherwise, everyone’s safety will be at risk and the criminal justice system will be unsalvageable.
Works Cited:
Allen, Harry E, and Clifford E. Simonsen. Corrections in America. New Jersey: Prentice Hall, 1998.
“Get Tough Policies Are Leading More to Prison.” National Catholic Reporter 31 Jan. 1997, vol.33 no. 13: p. 24.
Holmes, Steven A. "The Boom in Jails Is Locking Up Lots of Loot". New York Times. 6 Nov. 1994, Late New York Edition, sec 4:3.
Inciardi, James A. Criminal Justice. Texas: Harcourt Brace, 1996.
Jacobs, Nancy R, Mark A. Siegel, and Jacquelyn Quiriam, eds. Prisons and Jails-A Deterrent to Crime? Texas: Information Plus, 1995.
Jacobs, Nancy R, Alison Landes, and Mark A. Siegel, eds. Crime-A Serious American Problem. Texas: Information Plus, 1994.
Katel, Peter. "The Bust in Boot Camps." Newsweek 21 Feb. 1994: 26.
Smolowe, Jill. "…And Throw Away the Key." Time 7 Feb. 1994: 54-59.
"Successful Alternatives to Prison". New York Times. 1 June 1996, Late New York Edition, 18.
The United States has a larger percent of its population incarcerated than any other country. America is responsible for a quarter of the world’s inmates, and its incarceration rate is growing exponentially. The expense generated by these overcrowded prisons cost the country a substantial amount of money every year. While people are incarcerated for a number of reasons, the country’s prisons are focused on punishment rather than reform, and the result is a misguided system that fails to rehabilitate criminals or discourage crime. The ineffectiveness of the United States’ criminal justice system is caused by mass incarceration of non-violent offenders, racial profiling, and a high rate of recidivism.
The current criminal justice system is expensive to maintain. In North America the cost to house one prisoner is upwards of eighty to two hundred dollars a day (Morris, 2000). The bulk of this is devoted to paying guards and security (Morris, 2000). In contrast with this, community oriented programming as halfway houses cost less than the prison alternative. Community programming costs five to twenty five dollars a day, and halfway houses although more expensive than community programs still remain cheaper than prison (Morris, 2000). Tabibi (2015c) states that approximately ninety percent of those housed in prison are non-violent offenders. The treatment of offenders in the current system is understood to be unjust. By this, Morris (2000) explains that we consistently see an overrepresentation of indigenous and black people in the penal system. Corporate crimes are largely omitted, while street crimes are emphasized (Morris, 2000). This disproportionately targets marginalized populations (homeless, drug addicted and the poor) (Tabibi, 2015c). The current system is immoral in that the caging of people is highly depersonalized and troubling (Tabibi, 2015c). This is considered to be a barbaric practice of the past, however it is still frequently used in North America (Morris, 2000). Another moral consideration is with the labelling of youth as offenders in the criminal justice system (Morris, 2000). Morris (2000) argues that we should see youth crimes as a social failure, not as an individual level failure. Next, Morris (2000) classifies prisons as a failure. Recidivism rates are consistently higher for prisons than for other alternatives (Morris, 2000). The reason for this is that prisons breed crime. A school for crime is created when a person is removed from society and labeled; they become isolated, angry
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.
The Tragedy of America's Jails. " Newsweek - National News, World News, Business, Health, Technology, Entertainment, and More - Newsweek. Web. The Web. The Web. 05 Mar. 2011.
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
More than half of prisoners reoffend within at least three years of leaving prison. Those who reoffend tend to have more severe and more aggressive offenses than previously. A man by the name of Brandy Lee has shown that by having a very strict program in prisons, violent offenders in San Francisco jails reduced the amount of violence in jails. The program also helped to reduce the rate of violent re-offences after leaving the jail by over 50 percent.
For county jails, the problem of cost and recidivism is exacerbated by budgetary constraints and various state mandates. Due to the inability of incarceration to satisfy long-term criminal justice objectives and the very high expenditures associated with the sanction, policy makers at various levels of government have sought to identify appropriate alternatives (Luna-Firebaugh, 2003, p.51-66). I. Alternatives to incarceration give courts more options. For example, it’s ridiculous that the majority of the growth in our prison populations in this country is due to people being slamming in jail just because they were caught using drugs. So much of the crime on the streets of our country is drug-related.
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.
It is said that prison should be used for more serious crimes such as rape, assault, homicide and robbery (David, 2006). Because the U.S. Prison is used heavily for punishment and prevention of crime, correctional systems in the U.S. tend to be overcrowded (David, 2006). Even though prisons in the U.S. Are used for privies on of crime it doesn 't work. In a 2002 federal study, 67% of inmates that
Mauer, Marc. 1999. The Race to Incarcerate. New York: The New Press National Research Council. 1993.
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.
“The history of correctional thought and practice has been marked by enthusiasm for new approaches, disillusionment with these approaches, and then substitution of yet other tactics”(Clear 59). During the mid 1900s, many changes came about for the system of corrections in America. Once a new idea goes sour, a new one replaces it. Prisons shifted their focus from the punishment of offenders to the rehabilitation of offenders, then to the reentry into society, and back to incarceration. As times and the needs of the criminal justice system changed, new prison models were organized in hopes of lowering the crime rates in America. The three major models of prisons that were developed were the medical, model, the community model, and the crime control model.
Verkaik, R. (2006) The Big Question: What are the alternatives to prison, and do they work? The Independent [online] 10 October. Available from:
Prison was designed to house and isolate criminals away from the society in order for our society and the people within it to function without the fears of the outlaws. The purpose of prison is to deter and prevent people from committing a crime using the ideas of incarceration by taking away freedom and liberty from those individuals committed of crimes. Prisons in America are run either by the federal, states or even private contractors. There are many challenges and issues that our correctional system is facing today due to the nature of prisons being the place to house various types of criminals. In this paper, I will address and identify three major issues that I believe our correctional system is facing today using my own ideas along with the researches from three reputable outside academic sources.
Hamlet is still a young man of great intellectual abilities, but whose mind and heart are both clouded by anger and sorrow, resulting in actions that might be viewed as madness. Hamlet’s affliction began even before the contact with his father’s ghost, and was worsened when the truth about Claudius was revealed to him by the apparition of his late father. Hamlet’s actions are not results of insanity but outcomes of the pain he suffers because of the loss and betrayal of loved ones.