It is safe to assume that our ability to seek and get medical treatment is a vital and important aspect of our lives, thus being one of the most controversial topics in our current political landscape. Prison overcrowding brings a set of difficulties that are unique, as the aspect of incapacitation denies someone's ability to do so on their own free will, or seek out the specific level of care they wish. Nearly every prisoner throughout their tenure in state or federal prisons will need some type of care, these ranging from accidental to fight related injuries, and not to mention dental care. Many inmates with a serious chronic physical illness fail to receive care while incarcerated. Among inmates with mental illness, most were off their treatments at the time of arrest. Improvements are needed both in …show more content…
When these things happen, it makes it difficult for someone to differentiate right from wrong, thus emphasizing my point that if we provide our inmates with better care, timely care and ensure those basic needs are met, perhaps we could notice a change for the good, especially in the recidivist. "Currently, nearly 2.3 million US inmates (about 1% of US adults) rely on their jailers for health care. Although, prisoners have a constitutional right to health care through the Eighth Amendment's prohibition of "cruel and unusual" punishment, periodic crisis emerge, as well as previous studies, indicate that prisoners' access to health care and the quality of that care are often deficient, and in some cases inexistent. Indeed, citing grotesque conditions in California's prison system, a federal judge recently removed prison health care from the state's control. However, there is little nationally representative data on the health and health care of America's prisoners. Inmates have high rates of chronic medical conditions, especially viral infections (Wilper & Woolhandler,
Today, prisons are the nation’s primary providers of mental health care, and some do a better job than others. Pete Earley focuses his research on the justice system in Miami, Florida. He documents how the city’s largest prison has only one goal for their mentally ill prisoners: that they do not kill themselves. The prison has no specialized
Mandatory minimums for controlled substances were first implemented in the 1980s as a countermeasure for the hysteria that surrounded drugs in the era (“A Brief History,” 2014). The common belief was that stiff penalties discouraged people from using drugs and enhanced public safety (“A Brief History,” 2014). That theory, however, was proven false and rather than less illegal drug activity, there are simply more people incarcerated. Studies show that over half of federal prisoners currently incarcerated are there on drug charges, a 116 percent percentage rise since 1970 (Miles, 2014). Mass incarceration is an ever growing issue in the United States and is the result of policies that support the large scale use of imprisonment on
In 1814 Francis Scott Key described America as “the land of the free and the home of the brave.” Does that still hold true today? The United States has less than 5% of the world’s population, yet houses roughly a quarter of the world’s prisoners. That means it has 751 people in jail for every 100,000 in population. If you only count adults one in every 100 Americans is locked up. In 2012 the U.S. spent 677,856,000 billion dollars on national defense, that’s nearly 7.5 times the amount spent on education. If more money was spent on education there would be a better chance that people won’t end up incarcerated. About half of the prisoners in the United States are sentenced for non-violent crimes. The population of federal prisons has increased
In recent years, there has been controversy over mass incarceration rates within the United States. In the past, the imprisonment of criminals was seen as the most efficient way to protect citizens. However, as time has gone on, crime rates have continued to increase exponentially. Because of this, many people have begun to propose alternatives that will effectively prevent criminals from merely repeating their illegal actions. Some contend that diversion programs, such as rehabilitation treatment for drug offenders, is a more practical solution than placing mentally unstable individuals into prison. By helping unsteady criminals regain their health, society would see an exceptional reduction in the amount of crimes committed. Although some
On an average nearly 688,000 prisoners are released back into society, and of which includes 433,000 prisoner's waiting for trial and convictions, and the remaining percentage of prisoner's are serving sentences for minor and non-violent crimes, although, in the attempt to ensure public safety. Prison overcrowding continues to be a grave concern to the safety and welfare of the general public in California today because consequently the percentage of juvenile offenders detained represents 12,000 for technical violations, and 3,000 juveniles are detained for status offenses costing the taxpayers on an average $31,286 annually, and currently, the number of offender’s incarcerated in State and Federal prisons today is an astounding 2.4 million
While, equality of healthcare provision in America continues to be a leading topic of debate. Healthcare rights for incarcerated persons are largely absent from this national conversation. Healthcare affordability and accessibility to quality treatment, medicine and doctors remains a priority across all ages, races, genders and political parties. Because “the state” is given the power of autonomy from the provision of law under the federal government, it should be the responsibility of “the state” to provide adequate healthcare services and treatment to persons who are incarcerated.
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.
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.
I totally agreed with John because from what I see in the world right now, the world is getting more and more corrupted; not just adults are doing drugs and committing crimes but also young teenagers. According to an online article Mass Incarceration: The Whole Pie 2016 written by Peter Wagner, from the prison data of 2016, Wagner states that “ almost half a million people are locked up because of a drug offense”. Therefore , due drug offense in the United State, that’s why the prison population in the United State is so high. As for poor health care system, in the book Correctional Health Care: Guideline for the Management of an Adequate Delivery, It proves that jail in the United State have the worst health care system. In two- third of the jails, the only medical facility within the jail itself is first aid. On the regular basic, physicians were not available even on an on call basis. Also resources for handling medical issues are limited. So there is not much prisoners can do if they get injured or hurt. As for living condition in prison, jails and prisons lacks the facilities necessary to handle inmate’s health care needs and not only that the living conditions are very poor and cramp. Referring back to the video that John Oliver discuss, when the solitary confinement ask the prison director a question, with long thoughts he finally says, “ It’s ten by seven”. Comparing that to a ping pong table like John said, it’s not that
Some inmates have incurable conditions. Troy Reid who had high blood pressure and kidney problems was one (Mendelssohn. p. 295). July of 2007 Reid began to get treated for his kidneys that were shutting down (Mendelssohn. p. 295). Three times a week he would get a kidney dialysis but on April of 2008 he died (Mendelssohn. p. 295). He grown tired of the treatments and decided to die (Mendelssohn. p. 295). From July 2007 to April 2008 taxpayers paid for Reid’s treatments. For some people the treatments that Reid had no point and was just a waste. If inmates that have incurable diseases like Reid’s should not be in prison or jail. They should be released and they them self should pay for the treatment they seek. A lot of money was wasted on Reid; this is a reason they should not pay for inmate health care.
The United States has the highest incarceration rate in the world and of that over sixty percent of jail inmates reported having a mental health issue and 316,000 of them are severely mentally ill (Raphael & Stoll, 2013). Correctional facilities in the United States have become the primary mental health institutions today (Adams & Ferrandino, 2008). This imprisonment of the mentally ill in the United States has increased the incarceration rate and has left those individuals medically untreated and emotionally unstable while in jail and after being released. Better housing facilities, medical treatment and psychiatric counseling can be helpful in alleviating their illness as well as upon their release. This paper will explore the increasing incarceration rate of the mentally ill in the jails and prisons of the United States, the lack of medical services available to the mentally ill, the roles of the police, the correctional officers and the community and the revolving door phenomenon (Soderstrom, 2007). It will also review some of the existing and present policies that have been ineffective and present new policies that can be effective with the proper resources and training. The main objective of this paper is to illustrate that the criminalization of the mentally ill has become a public health problem and that our policy should focus more on rehabilitation rather than punishment.
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 motto of the DOC is care, custody, and control, and the DOC tends to slide toward custody and control. Care is often viewed with some suspicion” (Penrod). Inmates in a state prison become wards of the state, and while they don’t have access to privately funded healthcare, they do have a constitutional right to tax-payer funded healthcare. For aging prisoners this cost is very high. The 2012 Report by the ACLU states “Because of healthcare and physical needs that prisons are ill-equipped to handle, each aging prisoner on average costs taxpayers $68,270 per year—approximately double what it costs to incarcerate an average prisoner” (2012). Because the elderly prison population is increasing, the demand for prison healthcare is increasing, leading to more costs and, eventually, higher
In the United States 2,193,798 people are held in Federal prisons, local prisons and local/county jails. In local prisons 64.2 % of the inmates have a mental illness, 56.2 % in Federal prisons and 44.8 % in state prisons. Most of the inmates could have prevented their stay at the prisons if they were provided help for their illness, however they were not and they still have to serve their sentenced time. The inmates locked up are abused daily by other inmates or even the officers in charge. They cannot help they have illness and it is not fair that they have to suffer a punishment worse than they already have to. They are tormented and the abuse does not help their situation, the agitation can even make their condition worse, and the treatment for their illness is low quality if there is any at all. They are given harsh punishments or can even have their sentence made longer.
Although it may not seem like a major problem to most people in the United States, prisons are becoming overcrowded, expensive to maintain and have little to no effect on the moral discipline of inmates. The current prison system is extremely inefficient and the purpose of prisons has been completely forgotten. According to Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology, the primary purpose of prisons is to punish, to protect, and to rehabilitate. Not only is there an increase in prisoners, but there is a rise in the number of repeat offenders. Alternatives such as counseling, drug rehabilitation, education, job training and victim restitution must be better enforced and organized. People do not understand the severity of the problem mainly because