Most of the federal prisons in the Unites States are overcrowded, many are filled with drug users and suppliers. Stiffer penalties were put in place decades ago, which makes it mandatory the drug offenders go to prison. Judges and prosecutors can sentence according to an individual’s…
“No task is more urgent for racial justice advocates today than ensuring that America’s current racial caste system is its last.” – Michelle Alexander, The New Jim Crow In The New Jim Crow, Michelle Alexander (2010) describes an American paradigm that encourages pervasive racial injustices that are beyond average comprehension. In particular, the “New Jim Crow” is a system that predicates current racial differences on past social constructs that relate and date back to slavery and the Civil Rights Movement. The mass incarceration of black men in America is not the result of a propensity to commit or an affinity for drugs and crime, according to Alexander.…
For centuries, the United States has welcomed immigrants from various countries and have become home to them. In the 1800s, immigrants were even essential for the building of the steam engine and railroad tracks (Schaefer, 2013). As time passed immigration has increased and laws regulating immigration have not been enforced causing over population of unskilled immigrants. While unregulated immigration has its benefits, which help organizations, like social security it does not negate the fact that they are straining resources and the economy.…
There is also a need in the manner in which law enforcement manages drugs and drug enforcement. This can be handled by making drugs a public health problem instead of a criminal one (Lozoff, n.d.). This can shift a majority of the drug problem onto other services and by decriminalizing drug use and possession individuals can get treatment instead of being locked up for a mental health and addiction problem. This would alleviate overbooked court rooms and prisons allowing for the truly violent and dangerous criminals to be placed in space that is taken up by less violent offenders (Lozoff, n.d.). In changing the way the system manages drugs and drug addicts the crimes associated with drug use can also be decreased or eliminated (Chandler, Fletcher, & Volkow,…
Early efforts to meet the nation’s growing drug problem began in the 1970s. The U.S imposed stricter penalties for drug-related crimes, but was met with…
Ultimately the new “war on drugs” had a negative impact on American life during the mid 1980s-early 2000s due to the economic costs, the strain put on our justice system, and the civil liberty violations that occurred. As with any other war or bureaucratic endeavor, money must be heavily drawn upon and invested. When discussing the overall cost of this “war” through this time, congressman Lee Hamilton stated that, “Federal and local governments spend over $3 billion each year to fight drugs.” (cite) In his quote it becomes apparent that the United States had become highly invested and arguably obsessed in a seemingly impossible “war.”…
According to the National Association of Drug Court Professionals (NADCP), in 2009 drug courts in the United States have saved taxpayers $8.3 billion in federal and state funding. Drug courts have also saved an average of $5,680 per participant, returning a net benefit of $2 for every $1 spent. These savings reflect measurable cost-offsets to the criminal justice system stemming from reduced re-arrests, court hearings, and use of jail or prison beds. (Marlowe,…
There are many problems in the U.S. government system, but to me, the use of drugs in our country has shocked my eyes. One reason why drugs are an enormous threat is because when people do drugs, it causes pollution to our beautiful country. Also, there have been several deaths of drug usage. Lastly, many accidents have occurred because of people having the ability of purchasing drugs, and smoke it on the road. Drug usage is something that needs to be stopped by the U.S. government because it can harm many of our innocent citizens. When people attempt to do drugs, they just harm themselves.…
While it has been observed and recorded that crime rates have gone down in the last thirty years, the correlation between increasing the number of prisoners and less crime is not significant (Kelly, 2015). This is due to the fact that more and more non-violent offenders have been imprisoned for minor drug related offenses that have only been interpreted as major offenses by poor policy regulation (Kelly, 2015). This only means that tax payers are progressively increasing the amount of money they pay for nothing other than a false sense of…
The increased use of for-profit privatized prisons in the United States has created a system of mass incarceration due to compromised motivation for these institutions to maximize profits. Over the last four and a half decades, the United States has experienced a surge in the incarceration rates. In 2013, 1,598,780 people occupied state or federal prisons compared to 196,429 in 1970 (“Incarceration Generation” 1). This rise in prison population may be a result of harsher penalties and legislation on non-violent crimes. For instance, President Nixon officially declared the “War on Drugs” in 1973 and endorsed this through the creation of the Drug Enforcement Administration's (“Incarceration Generation” 1). The Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1986, passed…
3). This is not what the criminal justice policy-makers felt when they introduced this program to society. Instead they realized that substance abuse is long term and relapses will occur and this is what needs to be addressed as well their criminal issues (Cooper, 2007). Incarceration does not eliminate the problem of drug use. Incarceration even can make the drug addiction worse due to the fact that inmates can get drugs in prison and their mental issues are not addressed. In addition, the cost of drug courts is substantially lower than incarceration. The cost of incarceration per inmate per year is on average $20,000 per year (Skancke, 2005). The cost of drug courts is ranges from $1,800 to $4,400 per year per defendant (Skancke, 2005). Retired General Barry R. McCaffrey (2008) states that to help with these costs, “Public-private partnerships are critical to the success and future of drug courts, which are the best hope for breaking the cycles of addiction and crime” (pg. 1) . McCaffrey (2008) also believes that “every dollar spent on drug courts saves as much as $10 per day when compared to the high cost of incarceration. But what price can you put on getting a person-a father, a mother, a son, a daughter, an adolescent-off drugs and into recovery” (pg.…
The war on drugs in the United States is an expensive and deadly ongoing battle that has not yet been won. The term war on drugs provides drug distributors with more income due to the illegal nature of drugs. Americans do not have readily available easy access to many types of drugs that are illegal. Because narcotics are illegal that is enough for many people to want drugs. This is a major problem faced today in our prison systems throughout the United States. Especially in the state of California where many people find their way into our criminal justice system due to many factors…
Drug offenders have represented the most substantial source of growth in recent decades, starting with forty thousand inmates in 1980 to four hundred and fifty thousand inmates today. Despite the fact that the number of persons in prison today for drug offenses is more than ten times the number in 1980, drug use rates remain substantial, with data indicating a general increase over the past few years. During a period, when the number of persons in prison for drug law violations was growing at a rate faster than other offense types, the underlying behavior appears to have experienced little impact. Due to todays new consciousness about the unfairness and effectiveness of harsh crack cocaine mandatory sentences has emerged among policy makers and the United States Sentencing Commission. These unfair sentencing laws, have a dramatic effect on the cause of overcrowding in prisons for decades.…
Among problems the United States faces, one of the most prominent is the incarceration of nonviolent drug offenders. While the jailing of drug offenders does not seem so serious at first glance, under close inspection this proves otherwise. Among the flaws of this system, are the elevated crime rates that compare poorly to the rate of nations worldwide, the excessive budget wasted on housing these drug offenders, and finally, the sheer unconstitutionality of it all. By…
Prison overcrowding is become one of the major financial and controversial problem in the United States. The prison population is increasing rapidly, and we have only one reason the judicial system is given length sentences to cases that don’t deserve it, for example most of the offenders in the United State prison are drug cases, these sentences must be considered and most of the drug offenders should be put in rehabilitation centers instead of putting them in prison. According to the Supreme Court, “America’s prison population has more than quadrupled since 1980. A special report released by the Public Safety Performance Project of the Pew Charitable Trusts in 2007 predicts that the nation’s prison population will…