Crime and Corrections Crime and Corrections in California are currently putting our state at a major setback. Our current state of jails and prisons are extremely overcrowded due to all the criminals in our state, causing our taxes to constantly raise. We are trying to resolve and to solve the problem of prisons in California being too overcrowded, and how the cost to keep an inmate incarcerated costs a lot. “ the vera institute of justice released a study that found the aggregate cost of prisons in 40 states that participated was $39 billion’’ it takes more money to keep prisoners and guards to run the prison but the cost and toll it takes on the people is of great importance. The people want to keep the very dangerous criminals, killers, and …show more content…
And relocation of criminals could lead to criminals to possibly organize ideas to attempt and take over the transportation vehicle. While these would be some very extreme alternatives, they could still possibly happen making these potential consequences.
With the propositions we had presented, we would want to add a policy which would allow for the relocation of many prisoners to allow for prison evening. my potential consequences to my solution can cause a higher crime rate and costing the protection and lives of the citizens among those released out of county jail due to overcrowding.
Our tax money goes into supplying and keeping them in jail. Say the potential criminal committed a felony and it was up to the court to determine if their situation was bad enough to have them in jail, if not either other consequences such as house or parole. My potential consequences to my solution can cause a higher crime rate and costing the protection and lives of the citizens among those released out of county jail due to
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.
It cost a lot of money to keep one prisoner taken care of with food, medical, and housing. Instead of using that tax money on a prisoner, if that funding were to go to an after school program it would be more beneficiary. More programs for schools lead to children having an activity to do after school instead of getting into some sort of mischief and then getting a criminal record which then produces a vicious cycle of criminal behavior. That criminal cycle will then continue and add to the already overpopulated prison system. The goal here it prevent the blooming of a possible juvenile delinquent into a convicted criminal it before it even starts. So using the tax money that would 've been used on a low level convict who got busted for marijuana lets say, would be used to help prevent future convict to begin with. Not only school programs, but even things that would help improve communities such as parks, job creations, etc. All these things could also help prevent future prisoners because parks are used for activity for children to gather and socialize instead of getting to criminal mischief and job creations are used to prevent being in poverty which is retrospect is one of the main reason people end up in criminal activity. So all in all as you can see, there would be so much benefits in using tax money from a low level convict to the future of our
The U.S is only 5% of the world’s population and houses a quarter of its prison inmates; well over 2 million people. In the past decade the war on drugs has filled many state and federal prisons with a numerous amount of inmates. Building new prisons is not the answer to tackling the prison overcrowding dilemma. The U.S doesn’t have the money due to economic strains, and it will not solve this issue head on as needed. “California may be forced to release up to 33,000 prisoners by 2013” (Shapiro & Wizner, 2011, p.1.). Some women and men do not belong in prison, and should be given other opportunities to sought help. Prison overcrowding is a growing concern in the U.S today. There are many different alternatives to end prison overcrowding versus releasing them into the community. For example by launching a parole support group or treatment or rehabilitation programs for inmates as well as ex-offenders, house arrest or probation are other routes to explore.
“Prison Overcrowding: The Problem.” American Legislative Exchange Council. ALEC-American Legislative Exchange Council, 2013. Web. 18 Nov. 2013.
The United States criminal justice system constantly violates human rights. These rights belong to justify every person in America and should not be used to tear one another down for what their beliefs are. Likewise, freedom of speech is so ingrained in the constitution that it should be more widely embraced. The protection of religion, speech, and expression is a critical part of America’s political system. The strong, direct link between freedom and democracy is unbreakable and is an important part in governing ourselves. It states that Congress is prohibited in creating laws against people’s belief’s; yet, it is regularly denied to anyone who talks back to the law. Furthermore, this country supports the death penalty. While some individuals
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
It is undeniable that mass incarceration devastates families, and disproportionately affects those which are poor. When examining the crimes that bring individuals into the prison system, it is clear that there is often a pre-existing pattern of hardship, addiction, or mental illness in offenders’ lives. The children of the incarcerated are then victimized by the removal of those who care for them and a system which plants more obstacles than imaginable on the path to responsible rehabilitation. Sometimes, those returned to the community are “worse off” after a period of confinement than when they entered. For county jails, the problem of cost and recidivism are 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).
...be addressed. There is no easy solution here. A mass release of prisoners who are not properly rehabilitated is a safety concern to the public and will ultimately lead to those prisoners returning to prison. Building more prisons is not the answer either. We need to focus on rehabilitating those that are currently in prison and minimize the flow of people entering prison through sentencing reforms. We also need to concentrate on programs and treatment facilities that can be utilized instead of sending people to prison. This can and has been done. When Ronald Regan was governor he reduced the prison system by 30 percent, mainly through sentencing reforms (Price). We cannot simply look for a quick and easy solution to this problem, such as releasing prisoners early. We need to start at the bottom, figuring out how we got to this point, and address the problem there.
The United States is one of the only few democratic countries that disenfranchises convicted felons. An estimated 5.85 million people charged with a felony are banned from voting. Moreover, felon disenfranchisement laws are a form of racial discrimination because a large percentage of felons are Hispanic, Latino or African American that have been incarcerated as a result of racial profiling. Denying felons from voting is unconstitutional since the right to vote and cast a ballot is supposed to be the cornerstone of democracy. Felons who have completed their sentence should be restored their right to vote as they should be able to participate in elections just like every other citizen. Despite being charged with a felony, felons are also American
With prisons growing at the rate they are now, there must be more funding. 1 out of every 131 U.S citizens is incarcerated. The rest of the citizens have to pay for this person to have a place to sleep, eat, and exercise out of their taxes. These taxes can and should be used for more important issues. I...
Most people have the common view that the criminal justice system’s increasing arrests and imprisonment is an effective strategy for reducing crime. If the judicial system makes greater distinction among violent and nonviolent crimes, the prisons will have the vacancies to incarcerate the Jeffery Dahmers of the world in prison for life. By providing alternatives to imprisonment for nonviolent offenders will reduce the burden of taxpayer’s dollars for added funding for construction of new prisons. I know as a College Student I would like to see increased State funding for education system rather than the millions allocated to the prison system of Pennsylvania.
...rly $180 million in taxes, and crime rates have fallen by twenty-one percent. This new legislation that California used was the “realignment” legislation, which was passed in 2011. The realignment legislation “facilitated the earlier release of inmates serving time in county jails and cut back on incarceration for parole violations” (Goldberger). There are many other programs to help criminals be sent on probation after committing non-violent crimes. This program is called the Adult Redeploy program; this is aimed to send nonviolent offenders to specialty courts or probation other than prison. America’s criminal justice system has to go from incarceration to decriminalization and by making these legislations and programs, it will cut the incarceration rates, cut government spending, and give prisoners a chance to reform their ways without locking them away for years.
With the substantial increase in prison population and various changes that plague correctional institutions, government agencies are finding that what was once considered a difficult task to provide educational programs, inmate security and rehabilitation programs are now impossible to accomplish. From state to state each correctional organization is coupled with financial problems that have depleted the resources to assist in providing the quality of care in which the judicial system demands from these state and federal prisons. Judges, victims, and prosecuting attorneys entrust that once an offender is turned over to the correctional system, that the offender will receive the punishment in which was imposed by the court, be given services that aid in the rehabilitation to those offenders that one day will be released back into society, and to act as a deterrent to other criminals contemplating criminal acts that could result in their incarceration. Has our nations correctional system finally reached it’s critical collapse, and as a result placed or American citizens in harm’s way to what could result in a plethora of early releases of inmates to reduce the large prison populations in which independent facilities are no longer able to manage? Could these problems ultimately result in a drastic increase in person and property crimes in which even our own law enforcement be ineffective in controlling these colossal increases of crime against society?
In the 1970s and 1980s, a massive amount of inmates began fillin up the United States prison systems. This huge rate of growth in this short amount of time, has greatly contributed to the prison overcrowding that the United States faces today. In fact, the prisons are still filled to the seams. This enormous flood of inmates has made it practically impossible for prison officials to keep up with their facilities and supervise their inmates. One of the main reasons why many prisons have become overcrowded is because of states’ harsh criminal laws and parole practices (Cohen). “One in every 100 American adults is behind bars, the highest incarceration rate in the world” (Cohen). The amount of inmates in corrections systems, throughout the nation, sky-rocketed to 708 percent between 1972 and 2008. Today, there are about 145,000 inmates occupying areas only designed for 80,000 (Posner). Peter Mosko, “an assistant professor of Law, Police Science and Criminal Justice at New York’s John Jay College of Criminal Justice” (Frazier) stated, “America, with 2.3 million people behind bars, has more prisoners than soldiers” (Frazier). There have been studies that have shown “there are more men and women in prison than ever before. The number of inmates grew by an average of 1,600 a week. The U. S. has the highest rate of crime in the world” (Clark). Because of this influx in inmates, many prisoners’ rights groups have filed lawsuits charging that “overcrowded prisons violate the Constitution’s 8th Amendment ban on cruel and unusual punishment” (Clark). It is clear that the United States corrections system needs to be reformed in order to eliminate this problem. Prison overcrowding is a serious issue in society due to the fact it affects prison ...
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...