Issues Associated With Prison Overcrowding In The United States
Issues faced with Prison Overcrowding
Prison overcrowding is when the demand for space in prisons in a jurisdiction exceeds the capacity for prisoners in the place, for those who aren’t familiar or just simply didn’t know what prison overcrowding is. “Prison overcrowding is caused by a variety of issues, such as not enough room in prisons, fluctuating crime rates, changes to laws and improvements to law enforcement tactics (Prison Overcrowding is a Growing Concern in the U. S.)” Researchers have determined that some of the causes of prison overcrowding are harsher penalties for criminal activities, changes to laws that make new actions illegal, high recidivism rates and needed improvements to the penal system. Prison overcrowding leads to …show more content…
the inmates going on strike or even starting riots due to the living conditions and lack of space that each prisoner have when the prisons have exceeded maximum capacity. When prisons run out of units to house inmates they will resort to placing multiple inmates in cells that aren’t designed to house the number of inmates that they place in them. Prison overcrowding could be extremely dangerous for both the staff and the inmates themselves. Now one may see why this issue is dangerous and how this may frustrate inmates to the point where this could cause life threatening problems inside the prison.
Prison overcrowding can jeopardize the safety of both prisoners and staff. Inmates may not have access to programming and healthcare, while poor conditions can lead to riots and violence against staff and other inmates. In 2009, rioting inmates burned a California prison east of Los Angeles, injuring 250 prisoners and hospitalizing 55. This year, a prison riot in Nebraska left two inmates dead” (Liebelson 2015).
There are currently 18 states in the United States that have packed their prisons over maximum capacity. The 18 states that have reached over 100 percent of capacity are: Colorado, Delaware, Hawaii, Idaho, Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, New York, Ohio, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania and Washington.
In Illinois, prison facilities were originally designed to hold 28,200 inmates, but were housing 48,300 as of Dec. 31, 2014. The Bureau of Prisons, which mostly houses drug offenders, was 128 percent over maximum capacity, according to the report.
Funding
Funding is one of the major reasons why we experience prison overcrowding.
Corrections doesn’t receive enough funding to create new jails and everything else that may help corrections reduce overcrowding. Underfunding also leads to the ratio of correctional officers to inmates being extremely unproportioned. This leaves correctional officers outnumbered and vulnerable when they enter certain prison blocks alone. Whereas overcrowding is a psychological condition based on a perception of limited space by an incarcerated indi¬vidual, density is a physical condition, such as the ratio of inmates to available space in an institution. There are two forms of density: spatial density and social density. Spatial density, the measure most often used in prison-overcrowding research, is normally calculated as the proportion of inmates in an institu¬tion or prison system to the available space as estab¬lished by the rated capacity of the institution or system. Prison and jail officials often consider their institutions overcrowded when they exceed 80% of the rated capacity. Social density, on the other hand, is measured by the amount of double and triple bunking found in a correctional institution. Research indicates that inmate health problems and violence may rise as social density …show more content…
increases.
Solutions
Now that we’ve discussed all the problems associated with prison overcrowding, it’s now time to discuss the possible solutions to fixing this issue. One solution proposed by researchers were to send fewer people to prison for drug crimes. Half of the inmates in the federal prison system have been convicted for drug offenses. In a major speech in August, U. S. Attorney General Eric Holder stated:
the Justice Department would try to ensure that fewer people spend years behind bars for non-violent drug crimes, in part by directing prosecutors to bring fewer drug cases to federal court (Knafo 2013)
“If prosecutors and judges send 20 percent fewer drug offenders to prison, the federal government would save $1.
29 billion and the prisons would save 125,000 “bed years.” (A bed year is a year’s worth of prison time for one person)” (Knafo 2013) Another solution proposed was to allow drug offenders to serve shorter sentences. Being that nearly half of inmates are locked up on drug offenses for ridiculous amounts of time, reducing their sentences could be the most effective and beneficial way to save taxpayers millions of dollars. Lowering the amount of time federal prisoners are required to complete from 85 percent to 70 percent of their sentence will allow for more space inside the federal prison system. Releasing more elderly prisoners from Bureau of Prisons custody may be the most effective way of reducing overcrowding next to reducing time for those convicted of drug offenses. Usually overcrowding happens when the elderly is stuck in prison for lengthy sentences and there’s nowhere for the new inmates to be housed. If we were to release some of the elderly prisoners before their sentences were up, then we could make room for those who are actually a danger to society and save taxpayers money. The elderly shouldn’t be a threat to society, especially those convicted of drug offenses. Another solution raised was to send foreign inmates back to their home countries. This would open up much more space and save a lot of money as
well.
Prison overcrowding is one of the biggest issues we have in corrections today. The United States have the most inmates all throughout the world. We must find a way to distinguish violent and nonviolent criminals and find alternative ways to punish those nonviolent criminals to reduce prison overcrowding and save taxpayers millions or even billions over dollars. Allowing inmates (specifically those who are drug offenders) to complete drug rehabilitation programs to reduce time on their sentences could also help. Creating new jails would be a huge problem because the lack of funding, inmate to staff ratio, cost to taxpayers and this would only lead to more individuals getting incarcerated and overcrowding more prisons. How does this stop crime? Do we truly have the answer to reducing prison overcrowding?
Prison overcrowding is when the demand for space in prisons in a jurisdiction exceeds the capacity for prisoners in the place, for those who aren’t familiar or just simply didn’t know what prison overcrowding is. “Prison overcrowding is caused by a variety of issues, such as not enough room in prisons, fluctuating crime rates, changes to laws and improvements to law enforcement tactics (Prison Overcrowding is a Growing Concern in the U. S.)” Researchers have determined that some of the causes of prison overcrowding are harsher penalties for criminal activities, changes to laws that make new actions illegal, high recidivism rates and needed improvements to the penal system. Prison overcrowding leads to …show more content…
the inmates going on strike or even starting riots due to the living conditions and lack of space that each prisoner have when the prisons have exceeded maximum capacity. When prisons run out of units to house inmates they will resort to placing multiple inmates in cells that aren’t designed to house the number of inmates that they place in them. Prison overcrowding could be extremely dangerous for both the staff and the inmates themselves. Now one may see why this issue is dangerous and how this may frustrate inmates to the point where this could cause life threatening problems inside the prison.
Prison overcrowding can jeopardize the safety of both prisoners and staff. Inmates may not have access to programming and healthcare, while poor conditions can lead to riots and violence against staff and other inmates. In 2009, rioting inmates burned a California prison east of Los Angeles, injuring 250 prisoners and hospitalizing 55. This year, a prison riot in Nebraska left two inmates dead” (Liebelson 2015).
There are currently 18 states in the United States that have packed their prisons over maximum capacity. The 18 states that have reached over 100 percent of capacity are: Colorado, Delaware, Hawaii, Idaho, Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, New York, Ohio, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania and Washington.
In Illinois, prison facilities were originally designed to hold 28,200 inmates, but were housing 48,300 as of Dec. 31, 2014. The Bureau of Prisons, which mostly houses drug offenders, was 128 percent over maximum capacity, according to the report.
Funding
Funding is one of the major reasons why we experience prison overcrowding.
Corrections doesn’t receive enough funding to create new jails and everything else that may help corrections reduce overcrowding. Underfunding also leads to the ratio of correctional officers to inmates being extremely unproportioned. This leaves correctional officers outnumbered and vulnerable when they enter certain prison blocks alone. Whereas overcrowding is a psychological condition based on a perception of limited space by an incarcerated indi¬vidual, density is a physical condition, such as the ratio of inmates to available space in an institution. There are two forms of density: spatial density and social density. Spatial density, the measure most often used in prison-overcrowding research, is normally calculated as the proportion of inmates in an institu¬tion or prison system to the available space as estab¬lished by the rated capacity of the institution or system. Prison and jail officials often consider their institutions overcrowded when they exceed 80% of the rated capacity. Social density, on the other hand, is measured by the amount of double and triple bunking found in a correctional institution. Research indicates that inmate health problems and violence may rise as social density …show more content…
increases.
Solutions
Now that we’ve discussed all the problems associated with prison overcrowding, it’s now time to discuss the possible solutions to fixing this issue. One solution proposed by researchers were to send fewer people to prison for drug crimes. Half of the inmates in the federal prison system have been convicted for drug offenses. In a major speech in August, U. S. Attorney General Eric Holder stated:
the Justice Department would try to ensure that fewer people spend years behind bars for non-violent drug crimes, in part by directing prosecutors to bring fewer drug cases to federal court (Knafo 2013)
“If prosecutors and judges send 20 percent fewer drug offenders to prison, the federal government would save $1.
29 billion and the prisons would save 125,000 “bed years.” (A bed year is a year’s worth of prison time for one person)” (Knafo 2013) Another solution proposed was to allow drug offenders to serve shorter sentences. Being that nearly half of inmates are locked up on drug offenses for ridiculous amounts of time, reducing their sentences could be the most effective and beneficial way to save taxpayers millions of dollars. Lowering the amount of time federal prisoners are required to complete from 85 percent to 70 percent of their sentence will allow for more space inside the federal prison system. Releasing more elderly prisoners from Bureau of Prisons custody may be the most effective way of reducing overcrowding next to reducing time for those convicted of drug offenses. Usually overcrowding happens when the elderly is stuck in prison for lengthy sentences and there’s nowhere for the new inmates to be housed. If we were to release some of the elderly prisoners before their sentences were up, then we could make room for those who are actually a danger to society and save taxpayers money. The elderly shouldn’t be a threat to society, especially those convicted of drug offenses. Another solution raised was to send foreign inmates back to their home countries. This would open up much more space and save a lot of money as
well.
Prison overcrowding is one of the biggest issues we have in corrections today. The United States have the most inmates all throughout the world. We must find a way to distinguish violent and nonviolent criminals and find alternative ways to punish those nonviolent criminals to reduce prison overcrowding and save taxpayers millions or even billions over dollars. Allowing inmates (specifically those who are drug offenders) to complete drug rehabilitation programs to reduce time on their sentences could also help. Creating new jails would be a huge problem because the lack of funding, inmate to staff ratio, cost to taxpayers and this would only lead to more individuals getting incarcerated and overcrowding more prisons. How does this stop crime? Do we truly have the answer to reducing prison overcrowding?