In On the Normality of Crime, Emile Durkheim claims that “crime is necessary. It is linked to the basic conditions of social life, but on this very account is useful, for the conditions to which it is bound are themselves indispensable to the normal evolution of morality and law” (Durkheim, 1893). Since crime is not an abnormal or pathological condition, it is not a disease that can be “cured” through the application of punishment (Durkheim, 1893). In Durkheim’s view, the criminal is as indispensible to a properly functioning society as the law-abiding citizen; acts of crime help to demarcate and reinforce the boundaries of acceptable behavior- these boundaries could not be known if they were never touched or violated. Crime also serves a number of other functions within society which make its total elimination not only impossible, but undesirable (at least to some). If we are to operate on the assumption that a certain level of crime is healthy for society and that to eliminate all crime would be detrimental, we cannot then assume that the purpose of the US penitentiary system is to eliminate crime altogether. But does the US system of incarceration effect crime rates? There is little doubt that it does, but it is arguable that whatever effect that it has is incidental to its various other purposes. Theorists have proposed a number of frameworks through which these purposes can be better understood: that the prison system is a self-perpetuating bureaucracy that is part of a larger “corrections-commercial” complex (Lilly & Knepper, 1993); that it is a means of reinforcing and solidifying class and power relationships (Wacquant, 2000; Parenti, 2001; Garland, 2002); that prisons are criminogenic institutions responsible for creati...
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... Journal of Law and Criminology. 98(2), pp. 547-619. Retrieved from: http://vlib.excelsior.edu/login?url=http://search.proquest.com.vlib.excelsior.edu/docview/218436826?accountid=134966
Pollock, J.M. (2005). The Rationale for Imprisonment. In Pollock, J.M. (Ed.), Prisons: Today and Tomorrow (Aspen Publishers, Inc) (2nd ed) (pp. 3-21). Aspen Publishers, Inc.
Shelden, R.G. and Brown, W.B. (2000). The Crime Control Industry and the Management of the Surplus Population. In Kraska, P., & Brent, J. (eds.) (2011). Theorizing Criminal Justice: Eight Essential Orientations (2nd Edition). Long Grove, IL: Waveland Press. pp 217-232.
Wacquant, L. (2000) The New ‘Peculiar Institution’: On the Prison as Surrogate Ghetto. In Kraska, P., & Brent, J. (eds.) (2011). Theorizing Criminal Justice: Eight Essential Orientations (2nd Edition). Long Grove, IL: Waveland Press. pp 270-280.
Lappin, H. G., & Greene, J. (2006). Are prisons just? In C. Hanrahan (Ed.), Opposing Viewpoints: America’s prisons (pp. 51-98). Detroit: Bonnie Szumski.
Many young criminals are less likely to become career criminals if punished through public embarrassment than through prison. Prison can be a sign of manliness or a “status symbol” (Jacoby 197). He says “prison is a graduate school for criminals”, providing evidence that criminals want to be convicted and be in prison, to strengthen their status (Jacoby 197). Jacoby knows how to properly get his view across to the reader, by saying that prison is not as effective now, as it used to be.... ... middle of paper ...
Throughout his novel, Texas Tough: The Rise of America’s Prison Empire, author and professor Robert Perkinson outlines the three current dominant purposes of prison. The first, punishment, is the act of disciplining offenders in an effort to prevent them from recommitting a particular crime. Harsh punishment encourages prisoners to behave because many will not want to face the consequences of further incarceration. While the purpose of punishment is often denounced, many do agree that prison should continue to be used as a means of protecting law-abiding citizens from violent offenders. The isolation of inmates, prison’s second purpose, exists to protect the public. Rehabilitation is currently the third purpose of prison. Rehabilitation is considered successful when a prisoner does n...
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
Lab, Steven P. “Institutional Corrections.” Criminal Justice: The Essentials. New York: Oxford UP, 2011. Print.
Ralph, P.H.(1997). From Self Preservation to Organized Crime: The Evolution of Inmate Gangs. In J.W. Marquart, & J.R. Sorensen (Eds.). Correctional Contexts: Contemporary and Classical Readings (pp. 182-186). Los Angeles: Roxbury
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
In Western cultures imprisonment is the universal method of punishing criminals (Chapman 571). According to criminologists locking up criminals may not even be an effective form of punishment. First, the prison sentences do not serve as an example to deter future criminals, which is indicated, in the increased rates of criminal behavior over the years. Secondly, prisons may protect the average citizen from crimes but the violence is then diverted to prison workers and other inmates. Finally, inmates are locked together which impedes their rehabilitation and exposes them too more criminal
Mauer, Marc. 1999. The Race to Incarcerate. New York: The New Press National Research Council. 1993.
Muncie, J., and Mclaughin, E. (1996) The Problem of Crime. 2nd ed. London: Sage Publication Ltd.
According to the Oxford Index, “whether called mass incarceration, mass imprisonment, the prison boom, or hyper incarceration, this phenomenon refers to the current American experiment in incarceration, which is defined by comparatively and historically extreme rates of imprisonment and by the concentration of imprisonment among young, African American men living in neighborhoods of concentrated disadvantage.” It should be noted that there is much ambiguity in the scholarly definition of the newly controversial social welfare issue as well as a specific determination in regards to the causes and consequences to American society. While some pro arguments cry act as a crime prevention technique, especially in the scope of the “war on drugs’.
Shelden, R. G. (1999). The Prison Industrial Complex. Retrieved November 16, 2013, from www.populist.com: http://www.populist.com/99.11.prison.html
All over America, crime is on the rise. Every day, every minute, and even every second someone will commit a crime. Now, I invite you to consider that a crime is taking place as you read this paper. "The fraction of the population in the State and Federal prison has increased in every single year for the last 34 years and the rate for imprisonment today is now five times higher than in 1972"(Russell, 2009). Considering that rate along crime is a serious act. These crimes range from robbery, rape, kidnapping, identity theft, abuse, trafficking, assault, and murder. Crime is a major social problem in the United States. While the correctional system was designed to protect society from offenders it also serves two specific functions. First it can serve as a tool for punishing the offender. This involves making the offender pay for his/her crime while serving time in a correctional facility. On the other hand it can serve as a place to rehabilitate the offender as preparation to be successful as they renter society. The U.S correctional system is a quite controversial subject that leads to questions such as how does our correctional system punish offenders? How does our correctional system rehabilitate offenders? Which method is more effective in reducing crime punishment or rehabilitation? Our correctional system has several ways to punish and rehabilitate offenders.
Coyle (2005). The 'Standard'. To say whether using prison as a form of punishment has aid in the quest of tackling the crime problem, one must first consider the purposes of the prison.... ... middle of paper ... ...