Imprisonment in USA

Reflections on Imprisonment in the USA
Introduction
The prison population of the United States of America is bigger than the entire population of the countries like Andorra, Liechtenstein, and some other members of the international community. Indeed, the continuously increasing number of the prisoners in the United States penitentiary institution is not a positive sign of law enforcement institutions effective performance. Currently, the maintenance of the inmates incarcerated in the different correctional institutions scattered nationwide presents nothing, but a heavy tax burden on the citizens of the United States, they should be regularly supplied and an army of police officers should be retained to control them (Austin & Irwin, 2012).
Vigorous debates in the United States Congress are being waged between the Republicans and the Democrats in regard to the efficiency of the current law-enforcement strategies launched in the United States of America. While the first party vehemently advocates the idea that everyone, who committed a crime or a misdeed, should be held criminally liable, the Democrats are holding forth that more flexible mechanisms of law observance must be developed and practiced. The political belligerents, however, converge in their opinion that the four grand objectives of the incarceration facilities are to punish the wrongdoer, to correct him, to rehabilitate and to deter him from committing new unlawful actions while he is being corrected.
The objective of this paper is to provide a detailed overview of the United States incarceration statistics, to speculate on the currently adopted rationales of anti-crime campaigns and to conclude on their efficiency. Finally, the paper provides an overview of the solutions that can be employed to remedy the identified problems.

USA Incarceration Factsheet
Imprisonment United States of America is commonly utilized for the needs of rehabilitation, punishment and deterrence of those, who committed offenses, including felonies and crimes. Nowadays the United States penitentiary system is reported to the highest documented number of prisoners all over the world. That recent report published by the Federal Bureau of investigation in 2011 indicated that 745 adults have been imprisoned for 100,000 United States citizens and legitimately authorized residents (Austin & Irwin, 2012). These figures amount to be 0.8% of the entire adult population of the United States of America. However, it is necessary to emphasize the fact that more than 4 million of the USA citizens and residents were on probation, making almost 6,000,000 people in the United States under some form of correctional control or supervision. Totally, the citizens who were somehow connected with crime commitment are reported to constitute approximately 3% of the entire United States population.
As far as juvenile delinquency statistics are concerned, more than 72,000 minors have been treated by the United States correctional institutions in 2011. Considering the fact that the official statistics are very high, the rates of latent crime in the United States are enormous as well. Several think tanks of national and international media coverage reported that more than 25% from the entire amount of the offenses and felonies committed within the jurisdiction of the United States of America are never revealed or officially reported, making the statistics even more egregious.
As far as the segmentation of the prisoners is concerned, nowadays 8% of the incarcerated prisoners are serving their sentences for the violent crimes, while the rest has been typically incarcerated for nonviolent wrongdoings, like white-collar crime, drug trafficking and dealing, thefts or tax evasion.

The major concern discussed by the political figures is that currently the United States federal budget spends more than $30,000 yearly on each prisoner’s maintenance, which dramatically increases the tax burden to be disbursed by the United States citizens and corporate agencies.
The Solution and Its Rationale
It is clear that the existence of the correctional institutions have been demanded by the need to safeguard the normal functioning of the communal institutions (PP Presentation). Most importantly, the deterrent function of the criminal institution is definitely the most fundamental one. Rapists, murderers, burglars and robbers definitely isolated from the ordinary law abiding citizens. The recidivism statistics indicates that the overwhelming majority of the violent criminals tend to repeat their violent actions in future; consequently there is no alternative for the community nowadays, but to restrict their liberty of movement.
It has been highlighted that those charged with the violent crimes perpetuation constitute a small percentage of the entire army of the wrongdoers currently incarcerated. At the same time, those who have been sentenced for nonviolent crimes consume the largest part of the tax revenues, which is especially severe financially for the law-abiding citizens in the light of the recent financial crisis outcomes. It is therefore logical the proposed by the Democrats party of the United States of America to change the sentencing system for the vast majority of nonviolent crimes. In particular, it seems to be reasonable to impose heavy financial penalties for those charged with white-collar crimes, such as tax evasion. Definitely, this practice can help to increase the tax revenues and to alleviate the tax obligations currently levied on the United States community.

Conclusions
To summarize the main points of this essay, it is reasonable to conclude that contemporary there is no alternative to protect the community from violent behavior of its particular members, then to put them into the correctional institutions. But for those, who present no direct danger of physical extermination or traumatizing the good members of the community, financial penalties appear to be more effective restraining and correctional factors than freedom deprivation.

References
Austin, J., & Irwin, J.(2012). It 's about Time: America 's Imprisonment Binge. Australia: Wadsworth
Perspectives on Prisons (the PP presentation)
The Great Prison Experiment (the PP presentation)

References: Austin, J., & Irwin, J.(2012). It 's about Time: America 's Imprisonment Binge. Australia: Wadsworth Perspectives on Prisons (the PP presentation) The Great Prison Experiment (the PP presentation)