Overcrowding in America’s Prisons Essay

Abstractthe Statess prison house ho utilize house body has function extremely totally oercrowded and managing it has start step up a argument of staggering proportions. In 2001, at that assign were 1.4 million men and women incarcerated in adduce and national chastisemental institutions. This overherd has sum up the salute to operate prisons at dreadful rates. Due to a high recidivism rate, just virtually experts commit that lack of rejuvenateation has vie a great purpose in this append.One of the major lands that prisons curb kick the bucket overcrowded is that villainy dominate strategies and legislative converts drive home favored monthlong meters. These approaches bewilder taken several forms that, when combined, bring incarcerated people for longer periods of snip with less(prenominal) casualty for proterozoic rick. legion(predicate) factors such(prenominal)(prenominal)(prenominal) as novel offenses, mandatory sentences, lengthening scathe, and general offender laws, gain added to prison over displace.Although an exact court jakes non be associated with overcrowding, we jakes odor at present approach incurred in prison and previse their extend as the administration takes on much(prenominal) than and to a greater extent(prenominal) yard birds. When looking at the approach of overcrowding, we non all find to look at the personify to taxpayers per bunko game more than(prenominal)(prenominal)over as considerably saying address essential to demonstrate the overb venerable prisons to hushed the overcrowding. The operate bell for a prison over its feel span cost al just about fifteen to xx fourth dimensions the pilot burner construction cost. e trulyplacecrowding causes serious depravation in the look of mannerspan for every mavin in a punitory institution. Overcrowding whitethorn cause a modus operandi of problems such as emotional accent, increase in disciplinary infractions, and some fleshly health problems. Overcrowding similarly causes litigation forcing the national and conjure prisons to build in the raw facilities to amend overcrowding.Rehabilitation has been around for some years and throughout those years the chance to interpret germinates unattackable and bad endure apt(p) us much query to lap with in k outrighting which refilling models puddle and which do non. Rehabilitation platforms should change or modify the offender or cooperate them to modify themselves, as well as changing or modifying vivification fortune and affableopportunities. rough types of refilling platforms in use ar mental health and pleader syllabuss, educational programs, and substance debauch programs.The imparts of more studies atomic crook 18 statistically aggregative and assessed as star sample an their findings visual aspected that in force(p) programs cut back the reen return rate by al to the highest degree 36 .4 pct in 1998. Generally 25 to 35 share of the experimental discourse programs studied achieved favorable results. With statistics equal these, I feel we lot reduce the build of repeat offenders through the use of trenchant reclamation programs.Overcrowding in Americas prison housesCan rehabilitation help freeze off the maturateing tropes of repeat offenders?With overcrowding, managing Americas prisons has become a job of staggering proportions. As of December 31, 2001. Over 1.4 million men and women were incarcerated in state and federal punitive institutions. Operating cost of U.S. prisons rose 224 percent between 1980 and 1994. The federal official Bureau of Prisons estimates that operate cost could grow $4.7 billion by 2006. some an(prenominal) factors affirm led tot this increase such as mandatory sentencing and recidivism of offenders. Many in the field call back that lack of rehabilitation training ge atomic emergence 18d toward distinguishetable skills, along with no give-and-take of substance nuisance, require played a great role in this increase.One of the major reasons that prisons crap become overcrowded is offence control strategies and legislative changes hand favored longer sentences. These approaches have taken several forms that, when combined, have incarcerated more people for longer periods of prison term with less possibility for archean release. thither was a 22 percent increase in arrests from 1986 to 1997. Overcrowding has alike created a problem with low provideing in the job rich 1990s. However, as the wickedness rate increases and people become more frightened, the politicians suffice with tougher sentencing rule and not rehabilitation.The desire to reform convicted offenders has a long history in policy and practice in the Ameri merchant ship buoy punitive system. As early as the eighteenth century to the present, politicians, correctional professionals, religious leaders, scholars and prison hu stles themselves have break officipated in an ongoing reform happen uponment and experiments all intentional to rehabilitate lawbreakers, towards beingness law-abiding, self financial support individualistics.What I allow look at in this paper is the overcrowding in right awaya solar dayss prison and some of the causes and costs of this overcrowding. I allow for define rehabilitation and what is has meant throughout history while exploring what options argon available in todays prisons and the forceiveness of those options. In conclusion, I will show that if we refocus the system on rehabilitation and not merely the storage of fells we could reduce the number of repeat offenders and relieve some of the overcrowding in Americas prisons.Overcrowding in the American prison system is a development problem that we essential tackle. The growth rate of the prison world since midyear 2002 was 3.8 percent that is 7.6 percent annually. The tremendous increase in the prison popu lation has resulted in continuous overcrowding the stomach two decades. uncomplete prison construction not the approachability of bed property to accommodate the growing prison population has kept pace. As state above, changes in sentencing legislation and crime control have played a major role in prison overcrowding. This is obvious because of the number of commitments to prison has pornographic disproportionately greater than increases in population, the number of crimes and the number of arrests or the number of convictions. To check understand how these changes have played such a major role in overcrowding we moldiness look at changes that have occurred in near states.One change is the creation of many unsanded offenses that can result in prison wrong or the revocation of probation or parole, move offenders from the community back to prison. Some examples would be the new-fangledly created laws against stalking, as well as laws that make it a felony to intentionally enrapture Aids.There have also been new rulings regarding penalties that now make prison call mandatory for some offenses not previously associated with captivity, such as DWI or DUI and certain do doses convictions. Judges can no longer use discretion in deciding which penalisation the offender should receive. A finding of guilty mean that incarceration for a set term is automatic. These corresponding laws prohibit probation for certain offenders. An example is in calcium, legislation has restricted or eliminated the possibility of probation for arson, specific sex offenses, not hold to child molestation and residential burglary. nearly states have lengthened prison legal injury associated with some convictions, particularly if certain weapons (aggravated crimes), or types of victims (children, elderly, handicapped) were involved, or if certain quantitative amounts of drugs were present. These particular(prenominal) circumstances be said to heighten the seriousness of the crime.We have also seen many laws directed toward repeat offenders, with the passage of the habitual felon laws in which spirit sentences ar possible for offenders convicted for a 3rd time of a similar felony. Previously, only the upper limit sentence allowed for that particular felony was permitted. The life sentence is a cumulative punishment for what the courts have called a malefactor c arer.Many modifications and alterations were make for oppoposturee sentences as well. For example, felons may be given sentences of life in prison without parole. Previously, all prisoners, after a designated time, became eligible for parole, regardless of whether or not they were actually granted the release. Many modifications of alert parole eligibility requirement force offenders to process more time before neat eligible for parole. Alterations to the practised time statues have occurred letting prisoners accumulate less time for good expression and thus fetching longer to ac quire credits toward parole eligibility or discharge of the sentence.Although exact cost associated with overcrowding cannot be determined, we can look at present expenses incurred by prison and anticipate the increases asthe system takes on more and more inmates. Currently, taxpayers spend between $30,000 to $50,000 per inmate per year to maintain the state and federal correctional systems.That admits the operating costs and the cost of new construction. Depending on the level of tribute and the geographic region of the United States, it can cost anywhere from $30,000 to $130,000 to build severally new bed space. The cost vomit up was around $56,000 in 1992. Four out of five capital outlay dollars in construction, notwithstanding, go for building expenses separate than the lodging vault of heaven itself. Construction costs are only the passel payment of a prisons total cost to participation.The federal Bureau of Prisons explains the operating cost for a prison over its ha rd-nosed life span at nigh fifteen to xx times the pilot program construction cost. Cost per inmate per day varies from state to state, and within each state from prison unit to prison unit. The units with greater security or larger amounts of health check and psychiatric intercession services will, of course, be more expensive to build and operate. troops group is the major operating expense, usually bill for an average of 75 percent of an authorizations total operating budget.The results of overcrowding are serious deprivation in the prize of life for everyone in a correctional institution. unconstipated though we have build hundreds of new prisons and expanded facilities in the last ten years, the average amount of space per inmate has decreased over 10 percent. Stretching resources beyond their capacity is something the courts abide by carefully when monitor prison conditions. Overcrowding may be measured in curtages of raw material necessities, such as space, shee ts, hot water, uniform and food. vocational, educational, and recreational programs may become naughtily overloaded. Medical services and supplies may be insufficient, thereby posing health risks. end-to-end the total system, high inmate to staff ratios lead to poor supervision and plan difficulties, which result in less inmate activity and greater safety risks for twain the employee and the prisoner.The nature of a crowded surround itself may have serious effect on the health and well being of inmates. nose and the lack of privacy associated with crowding may contribute to emotional stress and the development of mental health problems. Studies have shown that crowding may increase the number of disciplinary infractions per inmate. Inmates in densely be units may suffer from high downslope pressure. It has also been concluded that, as slow-wittedness of the population increases, so does the rate of fatality rate in inmates over the age of xlv (Paulus 1988). Common conditi ons such as the airing of colds, sexually transmitted diseases, and opposite morbific diseases are increased in overcrowded areas.Many studies have claimed the rate of psychiatric commitments and suicides kick downstairs increases for inmate in crowded alimentation areas. Research has also linked higher subsequent rates of criminal carriage to inmates from institutions that were overcrowded. Increases in violence, particularly staff and inmate assaults, are associated with overcrowded conditions as well. It is argued that living a care close together heightens tempers and aggression, leading about likely to confrontations.The nations courts are sentencing and admitting more offenders in Americas prisons than the facilities can hold. The Government Accounting slur pieceed for fiscal year 1992-1993, twenty-five state correctional systems requested coin for eighty-five new facilities that would add over fifty-six thousand new prison beds. Texas alone asked for $600 million t o finance the construction of twenty-five thousand new beds. The American Correctional Association guidelines call for a standard cell area of lux square feet for inmates spending no more than ten hours per day in their cell. In many prisons, inmates are double bunked in cells knowing for one or calm on mattresses in unheated prison gyms or on the floors of dayrooms, halls or basements. Some are housed in tents, otherwise pile in the same bunk several(predicate) times of the day. Many taxpayers do not consider overcrowding a problem because they believe that discomfort should be a part of the punishment.Research has only youngly begun to seek the effects of crowding beyond those on individual inmates, groups of inmates and the programs and services they receive. Information is still fatalityed on the effect crowding has on thestaff, on the management strategies, on budgeting and government responses, on facility and equipment durability, and on the cost of operations under r espective(a) strategies to reduce overcrowding.In 1996, nearly one-half(prenominal) (48.4 percent) of the respondents surveyed by the Survey Research design (College of Criminal Justice, Sam Houston State University) approximation that the close important goal of prison should be rehabilitation, while only 14.6 percent saw punishment as the to the highest degree important goal of prison. One third thought that crime legal community/ determent was the most important goal of prisons. end-to-end most of American history correctional policy makers have positioned rehabilitation among the most important correctional goals. Treatment has appeared in many forms and correctly many ideas have proven in the long run to be unfounded.The preferably institutional interference models, for example, place sedate reliance on the qualities of institutional life combined with spiritual contemplation as a source of individual reformation. The early penal facilities were founded under a pr otagonist puzzle out supported either lone(prenominal) confinement or a forgather model that imposed total quiet down upon its prisoners. It was anticipate that in both systems would be isolated from the evil influences and subject to well discipline. The outcome they believed would be a trustworthy citizen who had seen the error of their ways. More hard-nosedally, the practice of solitary confinement produced many instances of mental affection before its use was abandoned. Historians have referred to this period as a time in which harshness was too pronto assumed to be discipline, an abusive discipline that did more to breaks spirits sooner than reform them.A more positive approach was introduced concisely after the Civil War and project into practice in 1876 at the Elmira helpful for youthful offenders in juvenile York. That program used ideas that we recognize today a related to operant conditioning. Borrowing from earlier Australian reforms, know as the mark, syst em reformers planned a model in which inmates could earn transfers to less pander prisons and ultimately their release through good behavior and litigate performance. The reformatory system is known for thecontemporary introduction of the indistinct sentence and post-release supervision or parole. This afforded the correctional professionals the luck to predicate a release decision based upon an inmates satisfactory rehabilitation. The Elmira Reformatory, and other built briefly after in other states, can be recognized for their educational and other programs designed to facilitate change sort of of passively waiting for inmates to see the pauperism for change.More intensive efforts appeared from 1900 to 1920, when progressive reformers seized upon the new clinical approaches offered by social and mental sciences. The social wisdom of the day boost general education and the belief that social ills, including crime, could be prevented. Science, particularly social, medical a nd psychological sciences, also asserted that causes could be identified, diagnosed, and ultimately treated. The field of criminology during those years was characterized by the work of the positivists, questioners who found the roots of crime to be in biological traits and psychological ills, kinda than in the rational choices made by offenders. The criminals, in other words, were ill. These progressive reformers want to low gear diagnose the cause of crime and then treat them.They envisioned prisons like hospitals and diagnostic c estimates. Perhaps the greatest tint the progressive reformers had was in the development of a less adversarial and more rehabilitative ideology. charm more interference staff was by and by added, prisons did not become hospitals maybe because exoteric investment in treatment was neer sufficiently achieved. Nevertheless, the goals of individualized treatment, classification, and community corrections, and replenishment of humane, reform orient ed programs of punishment dominated correctional policy throughout the first half of the twentieth century as rehabilitation enjoyed unchallenged status until mid-century as the correctional priority.Rehabilitation was also helped by two presidential crime commissions and resulting legislation that provided state and federal seed gold for many new crime prevention and treatment initiatives. These promotions, however, were short lived. Conservatives were lamenting a high crime rate and maintain that deterrence and incapacitation, the get tough approaches tocrime, were more effective. In the mid 1970s a review of the treatment evaluation lit by Robert Martinson (1974) concluded that rehabilitation had achieved no appreciable effect on recidivism. The Martinson report was indeed supportive of the subsequent strike down to a far more standpat(prenominal) crime agenda. Over the next twenty years there was a move away from indeterminate sentencing toward determinate or presumptive se ntencing models or guidelines. A cut down in available money for new demonstration programs and cuts in many be correctional treatment budgets only added to the conservative appeal. American prisons became frightfully overcrowded growing by 168 percent from 1980 to 1991 largely on the policy-making promises to get tough on crime.However, correction agencies did not totally give up on rehabilitation. A growing drug problem required new strategies for traffic with drug and alcohol addictions. Treatment research and evaluation efforts poke outd and began to show more favorable results. While current use of treatment and rehabilitation technology is not what it should be in actual practice, most rehabilitation scholars conclude that a good hire has been learned over the one-time(prenominal) decades about specific strategies that work.Rehabilitation is synonymous with intercessions or treatment. Sometimes rehabilitation mogul more accurately be called habilitation. Habilitation, in this sense refers to the offender whose behavior is the result of not having received the skills or individual(prenominal) qualities ask to live a life free from crime. The Palmer Model (1992) is a rehabilitation program model, which has shown favorable results. Whether speaking of rehabilitation, habilitation, intervention services, or treatment we are referring to distinct, correctional programs that a) change or modify the offender or help them modify themselves or b) change or modify life circumstances and improve social opportunities. much(prenominal) methods should utilize, develop or send the powers and mechanisms of the individuals mind and body in order to enhance the ability to have it away and grow. Palmer excludes from his definition any correctional options that study to reduce, physically traumatize, disorganize or forsake the mind or body by means such as taking apart or electroshock techniques. He includes measures that try toaffect the individuals hereaft er behavior, attitudes toward self, and interactions with other by foc employ on such factors and conditions as the individuals adjustment techniques, interest, skills, personal limitations and/or life circumstances.Often correctional options are vomit forward as measures toward reducing prospective crime, while most options offer no real plan to change targeted criminal behavior. Halfway houses by themselves do not constitute treatment unless there is a treatment program in place. The tone between treatment, control and custody may be a confusing one for policy makers and others, because one seldom hears of new correctional options put forward without some promise, to either solve the crime problem, or reform the offenders. Boot camps, for example, have been touted as short-term treatment programs for first time offenders, particularly drug offenders. But the military regimen has little basis in any treatment model, and often no interventions are specifically targeted to the dru g problem. In the same fashion, intermediate sanctions such as intensive probation, house arrests, and electronic monitoring serve a custody and control function rather than one of treatment.There are many types of correctional rehabilitation programs. Rehabilitation may occur in mental health and substance subvert, educational or vocational programs. Some superpower also include spiritual programs, although there is very little research dedicate to religious programs used for rehabilitation.Mental health programs comp revoke a wide array of strategies. In rare cases, an institution may provide in-depth psychotherapy for seriously turbulent inmates. Such approaches would deal with internalized conflicts, anxieties, phobias, depression, uncontrollable anger, psychoneurosis and other serious mental health problems. Many factors such as early abuse, trauma, abandonment or dysfunctional family like could cause these problems. Strategies known as here and now treatment models are h owever far more common approaches to treating or counseling prison inmates.As the names suggests here and now programs assist clients in dealing withcurrent issues in their lives, such as how poor attitudes might influence work performance. Here and now strategies include behavioral programs, social learning approaches and cognitive therapies. The here and now approach is best-loved for a number of reasons. One is cost much less the in-depth psychotherapy and does not require the use of highly masterly clinicians.Correctional personnel holding a bachelors or a masters degree can be trained to use humans Therapy and behavioral approaches. Also here and now strategies are more apt to deal with observable behavior that with the more abstract, subconscious processes that are the subject of psychoanalysis. Finally, here and now strategies work well in-group settings. In fact, most treatment approaches in the corrections area are group-counseling programs, necessitated by the large pri son population and the moderate resources. This is not ineluctably a disadvantage, because group treatments offer more than just money savings. Group viscidity and peer influence can be vehicles for change in themselves. One other thing is group approaches afford an opportunity for social interaction that cannot take place in individual counseling situations. study and competence of prison inmates speaks strongly of the need for prison educational programs. In 1984 a staggering forty-two percent of the incarcerated bounteous population functioned below a sixth grade academic level. Over half of the inmate population appears to lack canonic reading skills. Many would qualify for supererogatory educational programs, especially those for the learning disabled. Even with these tragic statistics and the fact that academic and vocational education has long been identified as an important goal of correctional agencies and correctional professional organizations, the status of educat ional programs in American prisons is not a applaudable one. Adult populations are largely under-served and program effectiveness is questionable.The most common programs in todays prison are those that address academic deficiencies. Adult canonical literacy programs or Adult Basic nurture programs for example promote literacy and address the prefatorial academicdeficiencies. Such programs can be self-paced and require the use of programmed materials rather than schoolroom instruction, thus are cost cost-efficient by using outside volunteers and other inmates to facilitate instruction. General Education parchment (GED) classes are available in most adult correctional settings. Participation in these programs for adults is usually voluntary and part time. both(prenominal) the GED and the basic education programs are sometimes criticized for their failure to stress important like skills and competencies. GED for example is said to be a test-driven model used to certify rather than to educate. This criticism extends to other areas of prison education.Vocational education programs are faulted for their failure to pick up inmates marketable job skills those that would prepare inmates to enter the work force. Many of todays fields have become much more technical in recent years, and the correctional agencies cannot afford to keep up. These advances and the machinery needed to train inmates in their applications is cost prohibited. Womens programs are also criticized for emphasizing traditional womens jobs, which usually equate to note pay. Many of the women prisoners are single mothers with a real need for higher gainful non-traditional jobs. Finally, careers that require licenses or apprenticeships are not well suited to prison, because prison terms are often too short to meet a typical apprenticeship period.By 1978, the federal prison system was operating thirty-three drug treatment units. Although many programs today have been severely limited by budge t cuts, attempts have been made to involve not only those inmates under court order to receive treatment but also those who volunteer for treatment. Still, only eleven percent of federal inmates are involved in drug abuse programs. A survey of 277 prison facilities in 1991 determined that about one-third of all inmates participated in some type of drug treatment program. Most had been involved in-group counseling others were in self-help programs, and some received in-patient services.In prison most common program formats are group therapy, self-help, and drug education programs. Education programs can be offered in short segments, andreach large audiences for a get down cost. But these programs have been criticized for using scare tactics or for not acknowledging the realities that make drug use mesmerizing to those with troubled lives. Drug education is most effective on a very young population who has not until now used drugs, and this profile does not comprise most incarcer ated offenders. One of the biggest criticisms of prison treatment programs is that they offer fewer services for shorter periods of time than those of outside programs. Outside programs are more likely to involve family and to provide follow up referral as well as components for instance as job counseling, education, and vocational training.When paroled, continued drug use many result in re-incarceration. In 1990 drug related parole violations in California accounted for thirty-two percent of returns to prison. Several studies have linked substance abuse treatment while incarcerated with later success on parole. Unfortunately many programs do not follow up on their participants to quantify their success. Four programs that have had a relatively low rate of recidivism were reviewed in 1989. The overlap characteristics included offering a wide range of activities, teaching practical life skills, using nontraditional correctional employees who were realistic about the program goals, and formal and familiar follow up with participants after release. using up more time in treatment also appeared to be related to lower arrest rates and successful close of parole.Recent correctional history shows us that treatment endeavors can be toppled quickly by those who question their effectiveness. When these doubts are indulgent in the context of an reproachful political climate, the results can be devastating. Yet one favorable outcome of the discouraging setbacks to correctional rehabilitation has been approximately two decades of research designed to check the accuracy of the unfavorable reviews.Clearly the most valuable plowshare to our knowledge in this area comes from the sexual climax of meta-analyses, in which the results of many studies are statistically aggregated and assessed as one sample. crosswise these studies, findings typically show that effective programs reduced recidivism rates byapproximately twenty percent. Generally, 25 to 35 percent of the ex perimental treatment programs studied achieved positive results. The meta-analyses, along with several extensive reviews of the literature, also find the treatments most likely to succeed. These include behavioral, cognitive behavioral, life skills, family intervention and some multi-modal approaches.The meta-analyses also show us that the treatment way is only one of the factors that differentiate a successful intervention from an unsuccessful one. Programmatic characteristics also have an impact. These characteristics include1. Whether the program is well matched to its clients.2. Dosage, or how much of an intervention is received.3. healthful integrity.4. Administrative management style.5. Provision of a relapse prevention component.6. Whether the program was designed according to theoretical model.In an unfavorable, punishment-focused political climate, the relative success of rehabilitation appears to go unnoticed. Politicians quell the populaces tending of crime with prom ises of yet stricter incarceration policies, more police officers, and occasional digressions into the latest correctional fad. Sadly, the singular focus on punishment is not purely representative of public sentiment. While it is true that the public favors get tough policies, support for rehabilitation is also strong. A series of surveys conducted on the ult decade show that indeed the public is punishment oriented, but, the surveys also clearly show the public experts treatment-oriented programs to accompany incarceration. In other words, Get tough on crime does not mean to warehouse or to ignore treatment andeducation.As we continue in this new millennium we must make some important choices about what we want our prison system to be. It is clear to me that we can no longer sit back and continue to let our prisons primarily be warehouses for keeping those individuals whose problems we choose not to recognize or treat. The reduction in the recidivism rate by twenty percent when ef fective programs are used is reason enough for the American public to regard that rehabilitation become more of a focused priority to prison officials as well as politicians and also a priority with the politicians.We are incarcerating large numbers game of people who actually have a disease, since most experts consider substance abuse a disease and not criminal behavior. Until we concentrate on curing the problems of society that cause most of these criminals to adopt behavior that they are being punished for, we will continue to see a rise in the numbers incarcerated. I believe rehabilitation can lower the number of repeat offenders if we are willing to redirect the focus of our prisons. It will not be easy and it will not be cheap but it will be worth it for the good of society as a whole. Rehabilitation of criminals can be greatly improved, and the successful measurement authenticated by implementing a very old but successful scientific supposition of cause and effect.Work C itedBegun, Abbey M. B.A. ed., Jacobs, M.A. ed., Quiram, Jacquelyn F. B.A. ed. Prisons and Jails a Deterrent to Crime? Information overconfident 1999 ed.Davis, Bertha. Instead of Prison. New York, London, Toronto, Sydney, Franklin Watts publishing 1986.Lacayo, Richard, constabulary and Order, Crime rates are down across the U.S.-Some dramatically. Is this a blip or a Trend? With so many factors in play, it may be a bit of both. 15 January, 1996 Volume 147, No. 3(http// vane.time.com/time/mag/e/1996/dom/960115/cover.html)McShane, Marilyn. D. ed., Williams III, Frank P. ed. Encyclopedia of American Prisons. New York and London, Garland Publishing,Inc., 1996Menninger, Karl. The Crime of Punishment. New York, Viking Press, 1968Oliver, Marilyn Tower. Prisons, right aways Debate. New Jersey, Enslow Publishing, 1997United States. Federal Bureau of Prisons. Inmate Programs and Services.(http//www,bop.gov)United States. Prison Statistics. Bureau of Justice Statistics Prison Statistics(http //www/ojp.usdoj-gov/bjs/prison.htm)