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The different impacts prison overcrowding can have on inmates and correctional staff
The different impacts prison overcrowding can have on inmates and correctional staff
The different impacts prison overcrowding can have on inmates and correctional staff
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There are many issues, both ethical and moral, concerning how correctional officers treat inmates, whether they receive the proper medical attention, and how extensive incarceration sentences affect their mental state. These issues that inmates face have been a problem for several decades now. Most citizens do not even take the time to find out what inmates deal with on a daily basis. Once a person is imprisoned, people think they are where they belong and do not care how they are treated in prison. For the most part this is true, but it does not mean that an inmate does not deserve fair treatment and not to have their basic rights as an American citizen infringed upon. Regardless of the severity of their crime or how long their sentence is, …show more content…
There are several psychological effects that overcrowded prisons tend to cause in inmates. These issues that inmates develop while incarcerated are not limited to time in prison, most often inmates cannot cope with the adverse effects on their mental state and carry these problems with them once they are released from prison. Most inmates develop social anxiety from overcrowded living space in prison, this causes most inmates to become anti-social once they are freed. Once social anxiety has set in on an inmate, they become scared of mass gatherings of other inmates. This can cause severe long and short term effects for the afflicted inmate. Depending on the severity of the anxiety, the inmate may avoid group activities in the recreation yard, causing a decline in physical health. Another outcome may be that the inmate may try to avoid personal hygiene time in order to avoid being around to many other inmates at once. This would cause a decline in personal health for the inmate and most likely aggravate other inmates after several missed …show more content…
Idleness leads to boredom and anger, with no proper way to alleviate these dangerous ailments in a prison. After being idle for too long, inmates begin to look for ways to entertain themselves in order to alleviate the boredom. This is dangerous for not only correctional officers, but other inmates as well. Idle inmates may plot violent outbursts or riots, just so that they may break the monotony of their daily routines. Also with a lack of in-house work to offer to inmates, they may begin plotting violent acts against inmates that have prison duties so that they may acquire their jobs. Some may even begin to view the lack of jobs as a competition between inmates to remain active. This is unacceptable, there are several steps that could be taken in order to provide better lifestyles for inmates in prison and jail. One would be to reduce the severity of sentencing to fines for minor infractions, or allow inmates to serve in work release so that they may produce income for the state instead of being incarcerated in prison and becoming a burden to the
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.
Spending time in an overcrowded cell really lowers your social stability throughout time. Many of the prisoners tend to turn anti-social because they do not want to put up with the conditions in which they live. According to Terence T. Gorski the prisoners tend to develop an illness known as Post Incarceration Syndrome which is something developed through extreme confinement and lack of opportunity. The inmates are more often than not given very little opportunities to rehabilitate themselves with everyday things such as working and receiving an education in the overcrowded prisons. These prisoners are not given enough opportunity to assemble with one another because time is very strict and limited inside the prison walls. Resources are often stretched out to accommodate to everyone’s needs.The inmates tend to get treated in a very inhuman way, resulting in negative consequences. Dealing with the overcrowdedness of the prisons leads to the build-up of stress. Like every human being the prisoners will eventually get very tired of dealing with these conditions and will reach their melting point. When something like this occurs the inmate will most likely receive negative consequences such as complete solidarity. On the contrary being in an isolated cell for about 23 hours a day allows for the prisoners to ponder upon the choices
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.
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.
In today’s pop culture, media of all forms portrayals of correctional officers are almost always negative. Correctional officers are portrayed as bad, “meat head” type men. They are depicted as authoritarian, insensitive and without any redeeming qualities. This image of correctional officers is one in which many people believe and think of when they view prison life. These images can be found in films like “Shawshank Redemption”, where guards brutally beat, sometimes to death, the inmates they are responsible for. It is portrayed that the guards do not care about the inmates but instead hate them to the point that most believe they are always harsh and use excessive force. One harsh officer claimed he “wouldn’t piss on them [inmates]
Even though prison overcrowding may help prisons make money from its inmates. Prison overcrowding has resulted in an increased number of dangerous prisons, prisons are less sanitary, and the cost to house inmates has increased.
According to Mark Early, president of the Prison Fellowship International, the Bureau of Justice Statistics report shows that there are 19 states that have prisons operating at 100 percent capacity and another 20 are falling right behind them. There is no wonder why the overcrowding of prisons is being discussed everywhere. Not to mention how serious this predicament is and how serious it can get. Many of the United States citizens don’t understand why this is such a serious matter due to the fact that some of them believe it’s not their problem. Therefore they just don’t care about it. Also, some Americans may say that they don’t care about what could happen to the inmates due to repercussions of overcrowding, because it’s their own fault. In order to cure this growing problem people have to start caring about what’s going on, even if it’s to people who might deserve it.
When they are exposed to stimuli, their brain struggles to process it. Inmates reported panic attacks during their time in solitary confinement. Inmates reported difficulty with thinking, concentration and memory. Some cases were very severe and led to states of extreme confusion and disorientation. Inmates reported having aggressive thoughts and fantasies of revenge and causing harm to prison guards.
Overcrowding is one of the predominate reasons that Western prisons are viewed as inhumane. Chapman’s article has factual information showing that some prisons have as many as three times the amount of prisoners as allowed by maximum space standards. Prison cells are packed with four to five prisoners in a limited six-foot-by-six-foot space, which then, leads to unsanitary conditions. Prisons with overcrowding are exposed to outbreaks of infectious diseases such as, tuberculosis and hepatitis.
Even though prisons have such a hard effect on correctional officers some may argue that they should not be complaining about their job. Correctional officers chose their job so they cannot complain about the conditions they endure. Some correctional officers join prisons to be correctional officers so they can get their bottled up anger out and let it out on the prisoners. Correctional officers like this are creating a harsh environment for the prisoners for no reason. Prisoners already have to deal with overcrowding problems and terrible food so if correctional officers lash out on them and beat them up it creates more of a harsh environment. This can affect prisoners psychological wellbeing more than correctional officers since they have to be in prison 24/7. Correctional officers are not properly trained therefore they are not entirely ready to deal with prisoners and the environment of the prison. This can create a worse environment for the prisoners because they will not know how to handle the prisoners
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.
The “Tough on Crime” and “War on Drugs” policies of the 1970s – 1980s have caused an over populated prison system where incarceration is policy and assistance for prevention was placed on the back burner. As of 2005, a little fewer than 2,000 prisoners are being released every day. These individuals have not gone through treatment or been properly assisted in reentering society. This has caused individuals to reenter the prison system after only a year of being release and this problem will not go away, but will get worst if current thinking does not change. This change must be bigger than putting in place some under funded programs that do not provide support. As the current cost of incarceration is around $30,000 a year per inmate, change to the system/procedure must prevent recidivism and the current problem of over-crowed prisons.
Prisons exist in this country as a means to administer retributive justice for those that break the laws in our society or to state it simply prisons punish criminals that are to receive a sentence of incarceration for more than one year. There are two main sub-cultures within the walls of prison the sub-culture of the Department of Corrections (which consists of the corrections officer, administrators, and all of the staff that work at the prison and go home at the end of their day) and the actual prisoners themselves. As you can imagine these two sub-cultures are dualistic in nature and this makes for a very stressful environment for both sides of the fence. While in prison, the inmates experience the same conditions as described in the previous
Jail often makes people feel like a victim. When a person feels as if they are a victim, they are less likely to learn and heal from a mistake. Additionally, jail cells make people feel lonely, and sometimes even lost. “Take my word for it, jail scrs the soul. And I was never able to help those I hurt” Being angry and alone causes a negative impact on a person, and the act of sitting in jail causes no change to what they did. In order to right wrongs, a person must be able to directly help the situation they
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.