Prison System And Prison Overcrowding

These shortfalls were a result of severe overcrowding within California’s thirty-three state prisons. At its peak in 2006, California’s prisons were filled with approximately 172,000 inmates. However, these prisons were designed to hold about 80,000 individuals (Vicini, 2011, 3). At that point, State prisons were filled at 215% over capacity. Because of overcrowding, prison inmates faced chronic and severe shortages in basic medical and mental health care services (Vicini, 2011, 1). Despite attempts by the CDCR and the legislature to reduce the prison population between 2006 and 2011, the

“From 1978 to 2014, our prison population has risen 408%, one in 110 adults are incarcerated in a prison or local jail in the U.S. This marks the highest rate of imprisonment in American history” (Washington Post). With a prison system like ours, overcrowding of facilities has now become a financial burden, the question is for who has it became a burden for?

“I, Casey Apao hereby certify that this Critical Thinking Scientific Paper is the result of my sole intellectual personal property.”

In the United States, the increasing population within prisons contribute to the stress regarding the security of correctional facilities’ and the negative effects on inmates. Overcrowding can be defined as a space with a concentrated number of objects or people in a space beyond comfort. According to Verne Cox, PhD, “as a group of prison researchers summarized, in the 1980s [...] crowding in prisons is a major source of administrative problems and adversely affects inmate health, behavior, and morale.”(Haney. 2006 (4.)) Furthermore, the effects of overpopulation contribute to that of psychological hardship and emotional distress.

A man stands in front of the parole board and explains his life story to the judges who will decide if he will be let out of prison early or stay the full term. The man has a lower chance of getting out of prison being that he is a black man, but this is what the prison system claims not to be a factor of releasing people from prison. However, one in four White men is more likely to be released in the first six months of prison, than a Black or Hispanic man (Winerip). According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics the United States had 1.53 million people in federal and state prisons in the year of 2015 (“Prisoners in 2015”). Now that prison systems are on the rise in the United States, it takes away from funds that are actually valuable to

Per Derek Gilna’s report on Increase in Federal Prison Population, Overcrowding, prisons have become overpopulated throughout a five-year span from 2006 to 2011 (Gilna, page 48). Prison overcrowding has become a plague in the United States for some time now. The US Bureau of Justice Statistics shows more than two-million adults are incarcerated in US federal and state prisons. There are many reasons that prisons are becoming overpopulated but not such a certain cause. To fix the problem, attention must be brought towards the causes of this problem. Its happen to become a serious issue because it affects the prisoners, tax payers, prison staff and millions of others living in the U.S. as well. To put a stop to this continuous problem, action must take place to start prison reform and to structure our country to punish criminals in manner that is more reasonable than how we currently do it in today’s world.

Prison overcrowding continues to be one several challenges of criminal justice in the United States. Even though many prisons have been built to throughout the country to accommodate the growing numbers of inmates. The most prison overcrowding is a harsh reality in many jurisdictions and in the federal systems. One of the issues is the true definition of the prison capacity. The different types of capacities are rated capacity, operational capacity and design capacity. Rated capacity refers to the size of the inmate population that a facility can handle according to the judgment of experts. Operational capacity is the number of inmates that a facility can effectively accommodate based on an appraisal of the institution's staff, programs, and

Based on the Bureau for Justice Statistics, the number of prison inmates for federal and state increase by 261% from 1980 to 2009. The number of adult federal and state prison inmates increased from 139 per 100,000 to 502 per 100,000. (Welson, 2012). More than 2 million Americans are now incarcerated in prison and there are over 7.2 million are in some form of penal supervision such as jail, prison, parole or probation. (Welson, 2012).

Overcrowding in prisons is a huge problem that we have in the United States. Overcrowding prisons is not safe for prisoners or the people working in the prison. If prisons stopped being overcrowded it would positively impact the prisoners because they could have a good chance in rehabilitating and the prison staff could keep a better eye on them ensuring safety to everyone in the prison

My paper will discuss the problems and a few of the effects that prison overcrowding causes towards the inmates and the guards. I will first address the issue of violence that prison overcrowding causes. My next point will be the health of the inmates discussing both their physical and mental while in overcrowded prisons. Lastly I will discuss the physical and mental health of the correctional officers and how the job could lead to correctional officers having issues in their private life.

Solving the problem of overcrowding in prisons could be easily solved with capital punishment. According to the author of “The Death Penalty,” Bri Buch, “Without executing prisoners and putting them on death row, I can see every prison getting overcrowded and out of hand.” In other words, there isn’t something done about overcrowding in prisons then prisons can become even more dangerous. In the article, ”Overcrowding,” It is stated, “Overcrowding, as well as related problems such as lack of privacy, can also cause or exacerbate mental health problems, and increase rates of violence, self harm, and suicide.” Overcrowding in prisons has become a big problem. If this problem isn’t resolved then it could increase more violence and even death rates

(Wanger & Sakala, 2014) points out that rising crime rates, inadequate rooms in prison and frequent amendments of the law in terms of improvement of law enforcement and their tactics are some of the major causes of prison overcrowding. Research shows that harsh penalties for criminal activities and a rise in recidivism rates are also a cause. Overcrowding is a result of the criminal justice policy rather than escalating crime rates which emasculates the aptitude of prison systems to meet basic social necessities. It also compromises the delivery and efficiency of recuperation curricula, recreational activities, and education. Due to the lack of privacy in the cells caused by overcrowding, issues of mental health may lead to suicidal attempts

. They get very limited space, making it easier to pass infections or diseases along each individual in the cell. The reason why there is a congestion in prisons is because to construct a cell is very expensive. Each cell in prisons cost about $75,000 to construct. According to the textbook, it would cost approximately 31 million dollars to build a medium security facility.

Well that has a lot to do with prison overcrowding, it is a big problem in society today. There is at least 114 countries that the number of prisoners exceeds the official prison capacity. Prisoners are treated no better than animal at a zoo because of the number of people they have held in cell. I’ll inform you about prison overcrowding, by talking about how many parents of children there are in prison, and the children that are affected. The poor prison caudation’s which the prisoners live. Last but not lease the things that have been done to reduce the prison population as we speak.

Why are prison and jail so overcrowded? Could it be we need to establish a better program for rehabilitating the inmates? For many years now rehabilitation has been an issue within the Criminal Justice System. The debate of should these criminals be punished or should they be rehabilitated. What is the reason for our jails and prisons for becoming so full? Is it because we simply like to house criminals to keep them off the streets or do we truly not know how to rehabilitate them back in to society properly? Penitentiaries first used rehabilitation as a form of punishment with in their facilities, the inmates were required to read the bible and repent of there sins as a form of rehabilitated punishment. This form of rehabilitation did not work for long. They had to find different means of punishment. They were afraid that if they coupled rehabilitation with punishment the offenders would act worse and refuse to do anything for themselves. Most of us know that the word punishment means a penalty inflicted on an offender through judicial procedure; suffering, pain, or loss that serves as retribution. As well as rehabilitate is to restore to former state. So why should prisons or jails rehabilitate instead of being punitive? "Punishing offenders is something we take for granted. We expect that those who break the law will be punished by the criminal justice system, and we naturally link crime with punishment." (Banks xiii) If the jails and prison would concentrate on