In our prison system today there are state and federal prisons throughout the United States. Our prison system is based on the created of the nineteenth century prisons that were used. Prisons confined felons serving sentences longer than a year and those sentence to less than a year stayed in jails. Prisons had a long term goals to provide inmates with a spiritual and human atmosphere were before the conditions in prisons were inhumane with horrible living conditions. The number of prisons in each state today, range from “Three in North Dakota to over 100 in Texas.” (Foster. 2006, p.123) many of the states started their prisons systems with penitentiary, and institution operated using the Auburn model and then continued to build additional as the population started to increase. (Foster, 2006, p.123) The federal prison system did not come into action until the 1930 federal Bureau of Prisons was created, and since then the federal prison system has not made much changes as to how they operated their prisons. “Texas Department of Criminal Justice, as the Texas prison system is called today, and it is now known around the world as the “capital of capital punishment,” (Foster, 2006, p.129) it is said that the Texas Department of Criminal Justice conducts the most executions out of the prisons. Even with the state and federal system separated the number of state inmates still on the rise. The “get-tough” legislation and the “War on Drugs” have increased jail and prison to a staggering increase in the population within the prisons system. (Foster, 2006) the majority of the population comes for those who have parole violations and are sent back to prisons for not following the conditions of their parole. The increase of inmates has slowed down, but the number of in mates still increases in the prison system. Violent criminal convicted of murder robbery, sex crimes, kidnapping, and felony assault make up half the state prison population; in the federal system they make up 11 percent. A small number of federal prisoners, well under 10 percent, could be defined as “White-collar Criminals or Political criminals” (Foster, 2006, p.141) There are different types of criminals house in the two type of prisons from state and federally held inmates for criminal acts committed. There is an increase in the drug problem within our current society and having programs set up that could help to rehabilitate those who could benefit from treatment programs to help with addiction instead of handing down heavy sentences that would crowd our prisons with people that could benefit from these programs. Those who find themselves in prison rather it be in federal or state they should have a mandatory rehabilitation program’s that the inmate must complete before they can be considered for parole or released from prison that could help the inmate to figure out what they want to do and get out of their life when released from prison. After they complete their treatment they should be released upon their completion of the program and not help for years unless the crime was of a violent type. Nonviolent offenders there should be given the chance to get out of jail without spending years behind bars by completing the programs designed for them and after they complete these programs have a mandatory counseling to help with any issue they are facing that could be causing the criminal behavior, so when they are released they are more likely not to reoffend.
References Foster,, B. (2006). Corrections: The Fundamentals. Retrieved from The University of Phoenix eBook Collection database.
References: Foster,, B. (2006). Corrections: The Fundamentals. Retrieved from The University of Phoenix eBook Collection database.
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