Prison Reform Research Paper

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Prison Reform

The United States criminal justice system houses the largest prison population in the world; both in terms of the total prison population as well as the proportion of prisoners to the total population (per capita). The United States has a bigger prison population than China and India despite having nowhere near the total population. It also holds a greater percentage of its population in incarceration than any other country in the world as well including such nations such as Russia, North Korea, or even Iran. The United States has about five percent of the world's population however it has about twenty-five percent of the world's prison population.

There are many stereotypes that uphold the image of the inmate, prisoner, or felon as a violent criminal, that must be locked away to keep the population safe. However, in many cases, the actual prison population is made up of a wide range of crimes and many of these crimes are non-violent. In fact, in the United States houses just a small percent of prison population who was convicted of a violent crime. Many people are imprisoned for seemingly minor offenses just as failure to pay child support, motor vehicle violations, missing court, drug offenses, and even for failure to pay debts (Maag, 2012). This analysis will look the need from prison reform from different perspectives and note some of the costs to society that this phenomenon has caused on different levels.

Figure 2 - International Comparison (Project America, N.d.)

The War on Drugs

The War on Drugs that was launch on a new scale in the last few generations has been largely successful at imprisoning drug users, however simply incarcerating individuals for drugs Today in the United States, according to the Bureau of Justice Statistics, 55% of federal prisoners and 21% of state-level prisoners are incarcerated on the basis of drug-related offenses which represents an incarcerated population greater than the population of Wyoming; the federal government is spending over twenty-two billion dollars alone on a so-called war that 76% of the population view as a failure (Head, N.d.). The War on Drugs has actually become so unpopular in public opinion polls that President Obama stopped referring to the criminalization of people for drug charges as the "war on drugs."

The reason that the War on Drugs has become so unpopular is despite a record number of arrests and the highest incarceration rate in the world, public spending that has risen year by year to pay for this tactic and it has not had a large impact on the drug trade or the usage of drugs. Furthermore, the ineffective War on Drugs has also ushered in a number of social changes. When a person is incarcerated for drugs it often leaves a broken family or community in its wake. Furthermore, once a person is incarcerated then this shows on their permanent record and can prevent them from finding decent employment.

Therefore, not only does the War on Drugs devastate families, but it can also ensure that criminals are subjected to a life of poverty. Instead of giving people the treatment they need to overcome their drug problem, they are criminalized and this can impact their social capacities for their entire lives. Instead of getting drug users the help that they need, if treated like a disease, they are sent to prison. As a result there is a high rate of recidivism and some drug users never receive treatment as opposed to punishment.

Criminal correction spending is outpacing budget growth in education, transportation and public assistance, based on state and federal data; only Medicaid spending grew faster than state corrections spending, which quadrupled in the past two decades, according to the report by the Pew Center on the States (Moore, 2009). The U.S. is spending unprecedented amounts of money to grow the prison system to house prisoners, while missing the real issues that are contributing to the drug epidemic.

There are other models in the world that have been shown to be more effective than incarceration in treating drug use. Many of these approaches treat alcohol and drug use as diseases rather than something to be criminalized. One example of a more liberal approach to dealing with drug use can be provided by Portugal. In 2001, Portugal decriminalized all drugs in the country including cocaine and heroin. Data collected since this time has drug usage has not increased whatsoever and possibly even decreased slightly (Greenwald, 2009).

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Another effect of decriminalizing the drugs is that it brings treatment programs into public discourse where they are more socially accepted and less stigmatized. There ample examples of more effective policies reforming the prison system could be positively influenced by reforming the War on Drug policies.

Prison Privatization

Because of the growing prison population and the expense related to housing this population, some states have looked to privatize their systems. Since the 1980s the prison population in the United States has grown at a rate that has no historical precedent that can be found in history (The Justice Policy Institute, 2000). The management of prisons was traditionally conducted by public officials who were accountable to the public. However beginning in the 1980s a trend emerged that began replacing publically managed prisons with private sector counter parts. The private companies have been able to reduce some of the costs of housing prisoners, however the costs associated with housing criminals is only one of the costs to society.

The largest private company is known as the Corrections Corporation of America (CCA) and became a publically traded in 1998 on a major stock exchange (Schneider, 1999). From corporation's perspective, the rate of criminalization and the resulting inmate population determines their potential for profitability. Thus a corporation has an incentive in keeping prisoners behind bars. Rising occupancy rates are the way in which the market can offer financial growth.

On study showed that in the Louisiana prison system, prisoners that are allowed to reside at state run facilities have an average daily price tag of $55 dollars per day in custody while at the private local prisons only spend a little over $24 a day for the care of their prisoners (Chang, 2012). However, this only represents one part of the equation. The additional expenditures in state run prisons often go to the care and rehabilitation of the prisoners. Many state run prisons provide vocational opportunities such as learning to weld, plumb, or even auto mechanics and are better prepared to reenter society as a productive member. By contrast, the opportunities are more limited in privately operated prisons due to the emphasis on cost savings.

Prisoner Abuse and Neglect

There have been many experiments that study the psychological implications of the prison experience. One of the most famous experiments in social psychology was conducted at Stanford University in which created a fake prison environment on the school grounds (Zimbardo, 2012). The prison experiment had to be stopped after just six days because the experiment became somewhat unstable as the prisoners were under significant amounts of stress and the guards where acting in near sadistic ways to the prisoners. Just being in the role of prisoner/prison guard can bring out some of the worst aspects of human nature.

The abuse of prisoners is not only limited to psychological damages. Since courts have been incarcerating citizens at a rate with no historical precedent, the federal prison system has been unable to keep pace with the stream of inmates and in some locations the extensive prison network is operating roughly forty percent above capacity (McLaughlin, 2012). With prions operating way over their capacity there is an increase in violence, the spread of Hepatitis is increased, and there are also increased reports of rape and inappropriate sexual conduct. The living conditions that the prisoners must endure in such circumstances can significantly contribute to the damage that the prisoners are subjected to psychologically.

Figure 5 - Prisoners Housed in a Gym in California (McLaughlin, 2012)

Conclusion

The United States criminal justice system houses the largest prison population in the world; both in terms of the total prison population as well as the proportion of prisoners to the total population (per capita). The United States has about five percent of the world's population however it has about twenty-five percent of the world's prison population. However, in the United States houses just a small percent of prison population who was convicted of a violent crime and many prisoners are held incarcerated for the War on Drugs or other non-violent acts. A large majority of these prisoners could be better rehabilitated in different venues and there are costs of this punishment on the individual, the community, and the society in general from not using more effective options.

It has seemed like the system definitely focuses more on punishment than rehabilitation and this is a costly position for the public. Criminal correction spending is outpacing budget.....

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