Overcrowding in America’s Prisons Essay

pinchthe Statess prison house ho physical exertion house system has collide with around extremely overcrowded and managing it has become a job of staggering proportions. In 2001, thither were 1.4 million manpower and wo manpower incarce rolld in say and federal punitory institutions. This overcrowding has affixd the damage to h gray-haired prisons at alarming rank. Due to a high recidivism rate, umteen experts accept that lack of replacement has played a great graphic symbol in this increase.One of the major reasons that prisons take over become overcrowded is that curse manage strategies and legislative repositions constitute favored longer sentences. These approaches drive taken nigh(prenominal) forms that, when combined, occupy incarcerated people for longer catamenias of time with less possibility for early release. umpteen factors such as mod offenses, mandatory sentences, lengthening terms, and habitual wrongdoer laws, gather in added to priso n overcrowding.Although an exact em ashes nominate non be associated with overcrowding, we smoke t 1 at present costs incurred in prison and anticipate their increase as the system takes on such(prenominal) than and more(prenominal) cons. When supposeing at the cost of overcrowding, we non moreover bemuse to look at the cost to taxpayers per inmate but alike twist cost take aimed to build the invigorated prisons to relieve the overcrowding. The direct cost for a prison over its disembodied spirit span cost about 15 to twenty times the schoolmaster construction cost.Overcrowding causes serious depravation in the reference of life for every champion in a punitive institution. Overcrowding whitethorn cause a number of problems such as emotional stress, increase in disciplinary infractions, and rough physical wellness problems. Overcrowding as well causes litigation forcing the federal and state prisons to build new facilities to relieve overcrowding.Rehabi litation has been around for more geezerhood and throughout those grades the chance to study models advantageously and bad harbour go forthn us much research to litigate with in penetrating which renewal models work and which do non. Rehabilitation chopines should stir or shift the offender or help them to convert themselves, as well as changing or modifying life circumstances and fondopportunities. Some flakes of replacement programs in use atomic number 18 psychogenic health and commission programs, educational programs, and substance abuse programs.The results of many studies atomic number 18 statisti imposey aggregated and assessed as one sample an their findings deputeed that exploitive programs reduced the reen punctuate rate by rough 36.4 per centum in 1998. Generally 25 to 35 pct of the data-based intercession programs studied achieved favorable results. With statistics handle these, I feel we depose reduce the number of recall offenders through t he use of rough-and-ready replacement programs.Overcrowding in Americas prisonsCan reformation help displace the acquireing numbers 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 go up 224 pct between 1980 and 1994. The Federal potency of Prisons estimates that operating costs could grow $4.7 billion by 2006. legion(predicate) factors have led tot this increase such as mandatory sentencing and recidivism of offenders. Many in the field suppose that lack of rehabilitation training ge atomic number 18d toward marketable skills, along with no discourse of substance abuse, have played a great role in this increase.One of the major reasons that prisons have become overcrowded is offence mold strategies and legislative changes have favored longer sentences. These appr oaches have taken several forms that, when combined, have incarcerated more people for longer periods of time with less possibility for early release. Thither was a 22 percent increase in arrests from 1986 to 1997. Overcrowding has also created a problem with understaffing in the job rich 1990s. However, as the crime rate increases and people become more frightened, the pols answer with tougher sentencing legislation and non rehabilitation.The desire to reform convicted offenders has a long history in polity and practice in the American correctional system. As early as the eighteenth century to the present, politicians, correctional professionals, religious leaders, scholars and prison inmates themselves have break officipated in an ongoing reform grounds and experiments all designed to rehabilitate lawbreakers, towards being law-abiding, self takeing individuals.What I will look at in this paper is the overcrowding in instantlys prison and some of the causes and costs of thi s overcrowding. I will curve rehabilitation and what is has meant throughout history trance exploring what options be available in immediatelys prisons and the strongness of those options. In conclusion, I will launch that if we refocus the system on rehabilitation and not merely the repositing 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 maturement problem that we moldiness tackle. The growth rate of the prison existence since midyear 2002 was 3.8 percent that is 7.6 percent annually. The tremendous increase in the prison macrocosm has resulted in continuous overcrowding the last two decenniums. N all prison construction not the availability of bed blank shell 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 beca use of the number of commitments to prison has grown disproportionately greater than increases in population, the number of crimes and the number of arrests or the number of convictions. To better understand how these changes have played such a major role in overcrowding we must look at changes that have occurred in about states.One change is the creation of many new offenses that can result in prison terms or the revocation of probation or loose, sending offenders from the club arse to prison. Some recitations would be the newly created laws against stalking, as well as laws that put on it a felony to intentionally transmit Aids.There have also been new rulings regarding penalties that now slang prison terms mandatory for some offenses not previously associated with immurement, such as DWI or DUI and certain medicine convictions. decide 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 equal laws prohibit probation for certain offenders. An example is in California, legislation has restricted or eliminated the possibility of probation for arson, specific put forward offenses, not trammel to child molestation and residential burglary.Most states have lengthened prison terms associated with some convictions, specially if certain weapons (aggravated crimes), or types of victims (children, elderly, handicapped) were pertain, or if certain quantitative amounts of drugs were present. These special circumstances be say to enhance the seriousness of the crime.We have also dealn many laws directed toward repeat offenders, with the passage of the habitual felon laws in which life sentences ar manageable for offenders convicted for a terce time of a similar felony. Previously, only the utter nigh sentence allowed for that particular felony was permitted. The life sentence is a cumulative punishment for what the courts have called a criminal career.Many modifications and alterations were made for former(a) sentences as well. For example, felons may be given sentences of life in prison without parole. Previously, all prisoners, afterwards a designated time, became eligible for parole, regardless of whether or not they were unfeignedly granted the release. Many modifications of existing parole eligibility filmment wring offenders to serve more time before becoming eligible for parole. Alterations to the salutary time statues have occurred letting prisoners accumulate less time for swell behavior and thus taking longer to acquire 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 syst ems.That includes the operating costs and the cost of new construction. Depending on the level of security and the geographic region of the fall in States, it can cost anywhere from $30,000 to $130,000 to build distributively new bed space. The cost range was around $56,000 in 1992. Four out of basketball team capital outlay dollars in construction, however, go for building expenses separate than the admit area itself. Construction costs are only the down honorarium of a prisons total cost to society.The Federal Bureau of Prisons explains the operating cost for a prison over its practical life span at about fifteen to twenty times the original 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 medical and psychiatric interference services will, of course, be more expensive to build and operate. Personnel is the major operating expense, usually repor t for an average of 75 percent of an agencys total operating budget.The results of overcrowding are serious deprivation in the quality of life for everyone in a correctional institution. even out 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 re disgorgeed players beyond their competency is something the courts watch carefully when monitor prison conditions. Overcrowding may be measured in unforesightfulages of canonic necessities, such as space, sheets, hot water, clothing and food. Vocational, educational, and amateur programs may become seriously overloaded. Medical services and supplies may be insufficient, thereby posing health risks. Throughout the total system, high inmate to staff ratios lead to poor supervision and scheduling difficulties, which result in less inmate activity and greater safety risks for twain the employee and the prisoner.The nature of a crowded environment itself may have serious effect on the health and well being of inmates. Noise and the lack of secrecy 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 populated units may suffer from higher dividing line pressure. It has also been concluded that, as density of the population increases, so does the rate of mortality in inmates over the age of forty-five (Paulus 1988). Common conditions such as the sp discipline of colds, sexually transmitted diseases, and other infectious diseases are increased in overcrowded areas.Many studies have claimed the rate of psychiatric commitments and suicides name increases for inmate in crowded living areas. interrogation has also coupled higher subsequent rates of criminal behavior 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 too close together heightens tempers and aggression, leading most likely to confrontations.The nations courts are sentencing and admitting more offenders in Americas prisons than the facilities can hold. The Government score Office reported for fiscal year 1992-1993, twenty-five state correctional systems requested funds for eighty-five new facilities that would add over lvi thousand new prison beds. Texas alone asked for $600 million to finance the construction of twenty-five thousand new beds. The American Correctional Association guidelines call for a standard cell area of sixty square feet for inmates expending no more than ten hours per day in their cell. In many prisons, inmates are double bunked in cells designed for one or stop on mattresses in unheated prison gyms or on the floors of dayrooms, halls or basements. Some are housed in tents, ot her sleep in the aforesaid(prenominal) bunk different times of the day. Many taxpayers do not understand overcrowding a problem because they believe that discomfort should be a part of the punishment.Research has only recently begun to explore the effects of crowding beyond those on individual inmates, bases of inmates and the programs and services they receive. Information is still needed on the effect crowding has on thestaff, on the management strategies, on budgeting and giving medication responses, on facility and equipment durability, and on the cost of operations under diverse strategies to reduce overcrowding.In 1996, nearly half (48.4 percent) of the respondents surveyed by the Survey Research Program (College of Criminal Justice, Sam Houston State University) thought that the most significant address of prison should be rehabilitation, while only 14.6 percent maxim punishment as the most important goal of prison. One third thought that crime prevention/ determent w as the most important goal of prisons. Throughout most of American history correctional policy makers have positioned rehabilitation among the most important correctional goals. Treatment has appeared in many forms and invitely many ideas have proven ultimately to be unfounded.The soonest institutional discussion models, for example, place heavy reliance on the qualities of institutional life combined with spiritual contemplation as a source of individual reformation. The earliest penal facilities were founded under a Quaker influence supported either solitary effort or a gather model that imposed total silence upon its prisoners. It was assumed that in both systems would be isolated from the evil influences and subject to strong discipline. The outcome they believed would be a responsible citizen who had seen the error of their ways. More realistically, the practice of solitary confinement produced many instances of mental illness before its use was abandoned. Historians have referred to this period as a time in which harshness was too apace assumed to be discipline, an abusive discipline that did more to breaks spirits quite a than reform them.A more positive approach was introduced shortly after the Civil War and put into practice in 1876 at the Elmira reformatory for youthful offenders in freshly York. That program used ideas that we recognize today a related to operant conditioning. Borrowing from earlier Australian reforms, write out as the mark, system reformers planned a model in which inmates could earn transfers to less secure prisons and ultimately their release through grave behavior and work performance. The reformatory system is known for thecontemporary knowledgeableness of the indeterminate sentence and post-release supervision or parole. This afforded the correctional professionals the opportunity to specify a release decision based upon an inmates sufficient rehabilitation. The Elmira Reformatory, and other built shortly after i n other states, can be recognized for their educational and other programs designed to facilitate change instead of passively waiting for inmates to see the need for change.More intense efforts appeared from 1900 to 1920, when progressive reformers seized upon the new clinical approaches offered by societal and psychological sciences. The favorable wisdom of the day encouraged unrestricted education and the belief that social ills, including crime, could be prevented. Science, particularly social, medical and psychological sciences, also asserted that causes could be recognize, diagnosed, and ultimately treated. The field of criminology during those years was characterized by the work of the positivists, researchers who found the root of crime to be in biological traits and psychological ills, rather than in the rational choices made by offenders. The criminals, in other words, were ill. These progressive reformers sought-after(a) to first diagnose the cause of crime and then t reat them.They envisioned prisons like hospitals and diagnostic centers. Perhaps the greatest impact the progressive reformers had was in the development of a less adversarial and more rehabilitative ideology. While more interposition staff was later added, prisons did not become hospitals maybe because public investment in treatment was never sufficiently achieved. Nevertheless, the goals of individualized treatment, classification, and community corrections, and substitution of humane, reform oriented programs of punishment dominated correctional policy throughout the first half of the twentieth century as rehabilitation enjoyed unchallenged location 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 money for many new crime prevention and treatment initiatives. These promotions, however, were short lived. Conservatives were lamenting a high crime rate and asserting that deterrence and incapacitation, the get tough approaches tocrime, were more effective. In the mid 1970s a review of the treatment paygrade literature by Robert Martinson (1974) concluded that rehabilitation had achieved no appreciable effect on recidivism. The Martinson report was indeed confirmatory of the subsequent swing to a far more conservative crime agenda. Over the next twenty years there was a move away from indeterminate sentencing toward determinate or presumptive sentencing models or guidelines. A drop in available money for new demonstration programs and cuts in many existing 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 semipolitical promises to get tough on crime.However, correction agencies did not totally give up on rehabilitation. A growing drug problem inevitable new strategies for chawing with drug and alcohol add ictions. Treatment research and evaluation efforts continued 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 deal has been lettered over the past decades about specific strategies that work.Rehabilitation is synonymous with interventions or treatment. Sometimes rehabilitation qualification 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 personal qualities needed to live a life free from crime. The Palmer feigning (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 circum stances and improve social opportunities. much(prenominal) methods should utilize, develop or send the powers and mechanisms of the individuals mind and body in golf-club to enhance the ability to cope and grow. Palmer excludes from his definition any correctional options that try to reduce, physically traumatize, disorganize or devastate the mind or body by means such as dismemberment or electroconvulsive therapy techniques. He includes measures that try toaffect the individuals future behavior, attitudes toward self, and interactions with other by focvictimization on such factors and conditions as the individuals adjustment techniques, interest, skills, personal limitations and/or life circumstances.Often correctional options are put forward as measures toward reducing future crime, while most options offer no real plan to change targeted criminal behavior. center(a) houses by themselves do not constitute treatment unless there is a treatment program in place. The distinction b etween treatment, control and clench 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. nevertheless the military regimen has little basis in any treatment model, and often no interventions are specifically targeted to the drug 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 abuse, educational or vocational programs. Some might also include spiritual programs, although there is very little research devoted to religious programs used for rehabilitation. affable health programs comprise a wide array of strategies. In rare cases, an institution may provide in-depth psychotherapy for seriously troubled inmates. Such approaches would deal with internalized conflicts, anxieties, phobias, depression, uncontrollable anger, neurosis and other serious mental health problems. Many factors such as early abuse, trauma, abandonment or impaired family like could cause these problems. Strategies known as here and now treatment models are however 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 preferred for a number of reasons. One is cost much less the in-depth psychotherapy and does not require the use of highly skilled clinicia ns.Correctional personnel retention a bachelors or a masters degree can be trained to use Reality 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 prison population and the limited resources. This is not necessarily a disadvantage, because group treatments offer more than just money savings. Group cohesiveness 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. teaching method and competence of prison inmates speaks strongly of the need for prison educational programs. In 1984 a staggering forty-two percent of the incarcerated adult population functioned below a sixth grade donnish level. Over half of the inmate population appears to lack basic reading skills. Many would qualify for special 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 educational programs in American prisons is not a commendable one. big(p) populations are largely under-served and program effectiveness is questionable.The most common programs in todays prison are those that address academic deficiencies. liberal basic literacy programs or Adult Basic Education programs for example elicit literacy and address the basic academicdeficiencies. Such programs can be self-paced and require the use of programmed materials rather than classroom instruction, thus are cost good by using outside volunteers and other inmates to facilitate instruction. General Education Diploma (GED) classes are available in most adult correctional settings. Participation in these programs for adults is usually voluntary and part time. Both 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 license rather than to educate. This criticism extends to other areas of prison education.Vocational education programs are faulted for their failure to teach 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 backing 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 equa te to lower pay. Many of the women prisoners are single mothers with a real need for higher paid 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 budget 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 lower cost. But these programs have been criticized for using scare tactics or for not acknowledging the realities that make drug use attractive to those with troubled lives. Drug education is most effective on a very young population who has not thus far used drugs, and this profile does not describe most incarcerated 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. outdoors 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 trea tment while incarcerated with later conquest on parole. Unfortunately many programs do not follow up on their participants to evaluate their success. Four programs that have had a relatively low rate of recidivism were reviewed in 1989. The shared characteristics included religious offering a wide range of activities, teaching practical life skills, using nontraditional correctional employees who were realistic about the program goals, and formal and lax follow up with participants after release. Spending more time in treatment also appeared to be related to lower arrest rates and successful completion of parole.Recent correctional history shows us that treatment endeavors can be toppled quickly by those who question their effectiveness. When these doubts are gentle in the context of an unfavorable political climate, the results can be devastating. further one favorable outcome of the discouraging setbacks to correctional rehabilitation has been more or less two decades of res earch designed to check the accuracy of the unfavorable reviews. clearly the most valuable contribution to our knowledge in this area comes from the climax of meta-analyses, in which the results of many studies are statistically aggregated and assessed as one sample. Across these studies, findings typically show that effective programs reduced recidivism rates byapproximately twenty percent. Generally, 25 to 35 percent of the experimental treatment programs studied achieved positive results. The meta-analyses, along with several extensive reviews of the literature, also identify 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 modality 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. redress 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 publics fear of crime with promises 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 interpreter 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 past 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 do es 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 mainly 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 effective programs are used is reason enough for the American public to rent 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 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 win 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 documented by implementing a very old but successful scientific theory of cause and effect. lock CitedBegun, Abbey M. B.A. ed., Jacobs, M.A. ed., Quiram, Jacquelyn F. B.A. ed. Prisons and Jails a Deterrent to Crime? Information Plus 1999 ed.Davis, Bertha. Instead of Prison. New York, London, Toronto, Sydney, Franklin Watts publishing 1986.Lacayo, Richard, Law and Order, Crime rates are down crosswise 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 tawdriness 147, No. 3(http//www.time.com/time/mag/e/1996/dom/960115/cover.html)McShane, Marilyn. D. ed., Williams III, Frank P. ed. encyclopaedia of Americ an Prisons. New York and London, Garland Publishing,Inc., 1996Menninger, Karl. The Crime of Punishment. New York, Viking Press, 1968Oliver, Marilyn Tower. Prisons, Todays Debate. New Jersey, Enslow Publishing, 1997United States. 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