America has one of the highest incarceration rates when compared to other developed countries. Before we place the cuffs on, let us check again, as to why they are placed. Criminals as we call them are the people who have been found guilty of a crime beyond reasonable doubt. They have committed crimes that the general public has found requiring punishment or some sort of rehabilitation. Therefore, we send them off to penitentiaries so they can have a “time-out” until they have served sufficient time equal to the crime they have committed. They are us, just another American who has unfortunately disobeyed the law that binds us to live civilized with one another. That being said, we must keep them in mind when we place the convicted into prisons and determine how to spend our resources to supply those prisons.
Laws: Now let us dive into laws. There are two classifications of law in the United States that we are voluntarily accepted, the first are civil laws our responsibilities to others. Civil offences are usually violations of contracts, like marriage, landlord/tenant disputes, or property disputes. The second category of law that we hold are criminal laws; these are “rules of conduct that have been codified and carry with them standardized consequences for their violation” (Del Castillo, 2012). Criminal laws are split in two sections and will be covered over this paragraph. Malum in se are criminal offences that hold the behavior that have been deemed “naturally evil as adjudged by the sense of civilized community” (Del Castillo, 2012). These include homicide, rape, robbery, and assault. Malum in se require of a violent mental state because they are considered destructive in nature. Malum Prohibitum are “Public Welfare Offen...
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...e, it widely used and accepted so much so that the U.S. Constitution was written on cannabis paper.
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Land of the Unfree: Mass Incarceration and Its Unjust Effects on Those Subjected To It and American Taxpayers
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.
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Harris, H. (2017, March). The Prison Dilemma: Ending America's Incarceration Epidemic. Foreign Affairs, pp. 118-129.
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
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According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics, in the year 1980 we had approximately 501,900 persons incarcerated across the United States. By the year 2000, that figure has jumped to over 2,014,000 prisoners. The current level of incarceration represents the continuation of a 25-year escalation of the nation's prison and jail population beginning in 1973. Currently the U.S. rate of 672 per 100,000 is second only to Russia, and represents a level of incarceration that is 6-10 times that of most industrialized nations. The rise in prison population in recent years is particularly remarkable given that crime rates have been falling nationally since 1992. With less crime, one might assume that fewer people would be sentenced to prison. This trend has been overridden by the increasing impact of lengthy mandatory sentencing policies.
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).
“It is said that no one truly knows a nation until one has been inside its jails. A nation should not be judged by how it treats its highest citizens, but its lowest ones” (Nelson Mandela, 1994). The United States of America has more people behind bars than any other country on the planet. The prisons are at over double capacity. It cost a lot of money to house prisoners each year. A large number of the prisoners are there because of drug related offenses. There are prisoners who have been sent to prison for life for marijuana related drug offenses. Many prisoners have been exonerated after spending many years behind bars due to the corruption in our legal system. 32 States in United States of America still execute prisoners even though there is no evidence to suggest that capital punishment is a deterrent. Prison reform is needed in America starting at the legal system and then ending the death penalty.
Studies have shown that the U.S prison systems are continuing to rise tremendously. Eliciting questions such as, what do we do to those who commit crimes? Since the 1970s, the United States
Perhaps the most common argument against mass incarceration is the cost. Weisberg and Petersilia explain a “cost-benefit” rationality surrounding mass incarceration. The public still wants to incapacitate and punish violent offenders, but are becoming more lenient towards non-violent drug offenders. This is because the societal cost to imprison non-violent offenders has reached a threshold that is no longer fully tolerated. This is due to the actual cost of the current prison system to taxpayers, the socioeconomic costs and socially stratifying effects of imprisonment, and the collateral costs of imprisonment on the country as a whole. However, in implementation knee jerk reactions that cut costs often undermine programs that are designed
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 origin of the word prison comes from the Latin word to seize. It is fair to say that the traditionally use of prison correspond well with the origin of the word; as traditionally prison was a place for holding people whilst they were awaiting trail. Now, centuries on and prisons today is used as a very popular, and severe form of punishment offered to those that have been convicted. With the exception however, of the death penalty and corporal punishment that still takes place in some countries. Being that Prison is a very popular form of punishment used in today's society to tackle crime and punish offenders, this essay will then be examining whether prison works, by drawing on relevant sociological factors. Furthermore, it will be looking at whether punishment could be re-imagined, and if so, what would it entail?