It’s kind of ironic that in the “land of the free” there are 2.3 million incarcerated people. Mass incarceration is a rising issue in the United States which requires immediate attention because it poses multiple threats to several aspects of society. Not only does mass incarceration affect aspects of the economy but it impacts the families of the inmates. When I first heard about this issue, I wanted to talk a closer look at it and see what it was like from the inside of these prisons. I currently volunteer at a place in Berkeley called “Prisoners Literature Project” where we package reading and writing material for prisoners from all across the nation. In one prisoner request letter, the inmate wrote, “While reading a book, I don’t realize I’m in prison and all alone.” This sparked my interest in learning more about the treatment of these secluded humans and the overall effectiveness of the U.S. prison system. While the U.S. prison system has four …show more content…
Once released, prisoners without any form of rehabilitation are more likely to wind up in a prison again. With millions of dollars directly going to prisons, it is disappointing that there are not any progressive results. It almost seems like money is simply coming out of America taxpayer’s pockets and then disappearing behind the government’s curtains. “The average cost of incarceration in the United States is determined by different methods. It costs anywhere between $20,000 and $40,000 per year to house inmates in federal and state correctional facilities; the considerable spread is due to the criteria used by government agencies and prison system watchdogs” (Hirby). The priced of keeping prisoners locked up away from society increases on a daily basis. In fact, the average price to keep an inmate in prison in California costs over $75,000. To put that into context, that’s more than Harvard’s annual tuition
After reading the book I have gained a new understanding of what inmates think about in prison. Working in an institution, I have a certain cynical attitude at times with inmates and their requests. Working in a reception facility, this is a facility where inmates are brought in from the county jails to the state intake facility, we deal with a lot of requests and questions. At times, with the phone ringing off the hook from family members and inmates with their prison request forms, you get a little cynical and tired of answering the same questions over and over. As I read the book I begin to understand some of the reason for the questions. Inmate(s) now realize that the officers and administrative personnel are in control of their lives. They dictate with to get up in the morning, take showers, eat meals, go to classes, the need see people for different reason, when to exercise and when to go to bed. The lost of control over their lives is a new experience for some and they would like to be able to adjust to this new lost of freedom. Upon understanding this and in reading the book, I am not as cynical as I have been and try to be more patient in answering questions. So in a way I have changed some of my thinking and understanding more of prison life.
Many changes are made inside the justice system, but very few have damaged the integrity of the system and the futures of citizens and prisoners. Although the story seems to focus more on lockdown, Hopkins clearly identifies the damaging change from rehabilitation in prisons to a strategy of locking up and containing the prisoners. To the writer, and furthermore the reader, the adjustment represented a failure to value lives. “More than 600,000- about 3 times what it was when I entered prison, sixteen years ago. In the resulting expansion of the nation’s prison systems, authorities have tended to dispense with much of the rehabilitative programming once prevalent in America’s penal institutions” (Hopkins 157). The new blueprint to lock every offender in prison for extended sentencing leads to an influx in incarcerated people. With each new person
The authors begin the book by providing advice on how a convict can prepare for release from prison. Throughout the book, the authors utilize two fictional characters, Joe and Jill Convict, as examples of prisoners reentering society. These fictional characters are representative of America’s prisoners. Prison is an artificial world with a very different social system than the real world beyond bars. Convicts follow the same daily schedule and are shaped by the different society that is prison. Prisoners therefore forget many of the obl...
Shapiro, David. Banking on Bondage: Private Prisons and Mass Incarceration. Rep. New York: American Civil Liberties Union, 2011. Print.
Just because someone is locked up does not mean they cannot get the message they want to people who are not in prison. The most effective way for a prisoner to get their message to the person they want is through literature. The function of literature in prison is demonstrated in “Soledad Brother”, “Letter From Birmingham Jail”, “Soul On Ice”, and ‘How Writers In Prisons Empower inmates”.
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.
Harris, H. (2017, March). The Prison Dilemma: Ending America's Incarceration Epidemic. Foreign Affairs, pp. 118-129.
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
The number of individuals that are incarcerated in the United States on a daily basis has surpassed 2.2 million (Gibbons & Katzenbach, 2011). Annually, 13.5 million people at some point and time spend time in prison or jail with approximately 95 percent of them ultimately returning to society (Gibbons et al., 2011). Taking the aforementioned statement into considerations the author believes that it is safe to say that what goes on behind prison walls effects all members of society. When correctional facilities are unsafe, unhealthy, unproductive, or inhumane it affects both the people who work in them as well as the people that are living there at some point and time.
Would you believe that America has spent around five hundred billion dollars on prisons.(Butterfield) Why are the tax payers of America spending so much money on prisons and not other effective solutions to stopping crime? The American legislation is closed minded about reducing crime. They believe that prison is the one and only solution. Since crime keeps occurring, more and more prisons need to be built and kept running for the increasing numbers of inmates that are pouring into prisons. Prison may be part of the solution, but there are other alternatives to help criminals. If we were to incorporate facilities like drug rehabilitation and job training into the criminal justice system then crime would be greatly reduced. Prisoners would commit fewer crimes after the experience of these facilities, therefore reducing the cost of building and maintaining prisons. The end result will be that the American tax payer's dollars will be available to go to more productive things than prisons.
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.
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’.
Today, almost 70% of all prisoners are serving time for nonviolent offenses. U.S. States are spending an average of $100 million per year on new prisons and all U.S. taxpayers front the bill for a system that is not working (Carson). Why should we force taxpayers to pay to keep nonviolent criminals sitting in prison cells where they become bitter, aggressive, and more likely to repeat their offenses when released? The answer is we shouldn’t, there are more reliable forms of punishment available, and rehabilitation and restitution are two alternatives I firmly believe are most effective than incarceration.
2nd ed. of the book. USA: Penguin Books, Ltd. [Accessed 01 January 2014]. The Prison Reform Trust.
Most people have no idea what it feels like to be in prison, statistically only one out of every five people will know what its like to be in prison. Approximately 1.4 million people out of the U.S.’s 280 million people are in prison. (Thomas, 2) The only reason people know about prisons is because of the media. The news, movies, and books all contribute to people's stereotypes about prisons. Prisoners receive three meals a day, workout facilities, a library, as well as other things. People are also given the idea, through the mass media, that prisoners are free to walk around certain parts of the prison. All of these ideas are cast upon prisons so that people will not be afraid of them. Society has been given the idea that prisons are not very bad on the inside. What is prison life really like?