Although the institutions were made to help the mentally ill, the overall idea was better than the lay out of it all. Hospital were often unfunded and unstaffed, Institution care system began to be portrayed as bad due to many reports on poor living conditions, and human right violations, leading to further disease of the mind for most patients and permanent damage. People often relayed on the institution so much that when released back into society, they were not able to live on their…
Stern’s (2006) book, “Creating Criminals: Prisons and People in a Market Society”, gives us the black and white truth about important topics that are not usually talked about in the media, nor acknowledged by most in American society. The author explains that she is in no way defending criminals with her literature, rather researching and informing society about the ineffectiveness of the criminal justice system and the market society. She argues that many policies go in favor towards those who have money, leaving people who don’t have money behind, which ultimately leads to creating criminals. She explains the dangers of overcrowded prisons, who are the people more likely to be imprisoned, and the role of a market society within…
In the United States, the government preaches equality for all, while in upholding a system that discriminates against almost everyone that is not white, or not male. Packing prisons in the United States is second nature, since the presidency of Ronald Reagan, the populations in prisons have increase at least 400%. And when talking about the prison system in the U.S., there has to be a conversation about race, because the prison system systematically targets people of color. U.S. soil bleeds racism, from the countries racist words about refugees to the color of skin dictating your pay. There is nothing number one about a country with a broken and racially biased criminal justice system, with racism directed at refugees of war because of their…
The causes of these conditions were varied. Firstly, due to the large quantity of the mentally ill there was little to no room for cleaning and housing. Additionally, understaffing in institutions resulted in most patients suffering from diseases; many resulting in death (Canton asylum). Due to common prejudices regarding the mentally ill, staff behaviors were also a factor. The pain and suffering caused by the underpaid staff’s abuse took a toll on the health of the patients and subsequently hurt their chance of recovery (Mental illness). Overall early colonial and foreign insane asylums resulted in little recovery to patients and, in most cases, resulted in further illness and injury up until the early 1800s (Canton…
Hospitals or asylum's that were used were overcrowded because there were about one million patients. By the Great Depression the conditions were deteriorating and filthy due to the lack of funding (Freeman). The treatments they used in the past were very cruel, inhuman, and did not benefit the mentally ill in any aspect. Also the places where they were treated at were inferior to hospitals of people that were mentally…
First focusing on the state of California prison, they were forced back in 2011 to release about 3,000 inmates. An article wrote by Derek Gilna says “A government study revealed that overcrowding in the federal prison system worsened over the five-year period from 2006 through 2011, affecting facilities of all security levels.” California has the three-strikes laws, as an offender if you were caught three times committing the same crime the third time you are sentence to be in jail for a longer period of time. This might sound like a good plan until you have offenders that are serving five to ten years for petty theft, prostitution, reckless driving or trespassing. These are petty crime that can be handle with charges and probations. Yet, in…
From the mid-1980s drug offenses increased primarily due to the pressure put on by the war on drugs (Neubauer & Fradella, 2014). This has contributed to overcrowding of prisons across America. In order to ease the overcrowding in prisons, rehabilitation through court sentenced drug treatment programs is a practical and economical alternative. Assigning offenders to applicable drug treatment programs would decrease overcrowding caused by drug offenses, lower recidivism rates, and provide savings for the criminal justice system.…
When society hears the words “convict” or “felon”, thoughts often take a negative route. Most of society would not want to affiliate themselves with an ex-inmate because of the stigma. People affiliate ex-inmates with people who will not better themselves, who will not gain proper employment, and who will end up back in prison. Negative thoughts on such a topic are natural since it is true in the United States; most individuals in prison will reoffend and find themselves back in prison. With prisons in the United States becoming over populated, should there be different efforts adopted by more facilities to help individuals become functioning members of society?…
One of the chief factors contributing to the ‘crisis’ in prison is the overcrowding of prisoners. Indeterminate sentences and increased use of long determinate sentences are key drivers behind the near doubling of prison numbers; almost doubling from 1993 9% to 2014 17%. Bromley Briefing Prison Factfile (2015) reveals cost of our ‘addiction to imprisonment’ in wasted time, money and lives. High security prisons are not filled to capacity, whereas local prisons are concentrated with overcrowding. The majority of these prisoners in local prisons are that of on remand and short term sentences. In October 2006, 62% of prisons were overcrowded, 12 prisons containing more than half as many as they should (Cavadino and Dignan, p.17). As a result of…
There have been numerous suggestions to try and help with jail and prison overcrowding. Some of these solutions are known as front-door solutions while others are known as back door solutions. Front door solutions to prison overcrowding are frequently directed at prosecutors and judges and the way that they handle offenders before and during sentencing. “Some observers suggest greater use of diversion and/or assignment to community service agencies, where some offenders may bypass the criminal justice system altogether and remain free within their communities.”(Champion, p 292) Some other possible front door soultions include greater use of probation by judges and recommendations of leniency from prosecutors with the emphasis on some form of restitution, community service, victim compensation, and/or fine as the primary punishment. Front door solutions also may include judges having an assigned fixed number of spaces they can fill in prison, with the hopes that by doing this only the most serious offenders will be incarcerated and it will narrow the crimes for which offenders can be incarcerated. . Cells allow a degree of privacy however, “when more than one is placed in a cell, which frequently happens due to overcrowding prisoners could at least on occasion, talk more openly and communication and interact amongst themselves.”(Johnson,p 50) “Some of the back-door proposals by observers include easing the eligibility criteria for early release or parole; the administrative reduction of prison terms, where the governor, or others shorten originally imposed sentences for certain offenders, modifying parole revocation criteria so as to encourage fewer parole violations and expanding the number of community programs such as mediation and including the use of intense supervised parole for more serious offender groups.”(Champion, p 293) Due to overcrowding and the violence it generates often the parole-eligible inmates have a lessened chance of actually receiving early…
Prison overcrowding has become a major problem in the United States. As per, Issues and Controversies, “The United States has only 5 percent of the world’s population, but holds 25 percent of the world’s prisoners”. (“Mandatory Minimum”) Housing the growing prison population is putting a strain on the federal government’s budget, costing roughly $80 billion a year. (“Mandatory Minimum”) Crime rates are down, but prison populations are a growing concern. In light of these facts, lawmakers need to explore ways of reducing crime that does not involve incarceration, but still protects society. What alternatives to incarceration should be considered and why?…
Mental Asylums have the connotation of being spooky and weird but there really is so much more to them - they help people. There is a mental illness called Schizophrenia and it causes people to hallucinate and “hear” different people who don’t actually exist. Europeans and Americans had different types of mental homes that were ran with different mindsets but overall the european homes were better for people with schizophrenia in the 1800s and it is important that the patients were taken care of well, because they are important and deserve a better life.…
The American prison system is an incredibly expensive part of our economy, with incarceration costs going up each year. A 2014 data collection of state correctional expenditures estimated that the economic costs of administering overcrowded prison systems are over 48 billion dollars each year (Kyckelhahn 2014). This money is coming from American taxpayer dollars and goes towards all of the prison staff wages, electricity, water, food, security, and more. By reducing the number of prisoners incarcerated, the cost of prison administration would also go down. Despite all of the money being spent on prisons in our nation, there is no evidentiary support to show that incarceration actually prevents crime. In fact it is thought to be the opposite.…
Prison overcrowding is a major problem in our criminal justice system and it continues to be a hotly debated topic as to how we should address the problem. One of the main reasons our prison systems have a problem with overcrowding is drugs. More specifically, the "war on drugs" started by President Reagan in 1982 brought a dramatic increase to the number of people put behind bars for drug offences. Mandatory minimum sentencing and truth in sentencing are two policies which have sent drug offenders to prison and kept them there for longer periods of time. The continuing crusade against drugs has apprehended hundreds of thousands of suspects who spend millions on drugs but the cost to incarcerate these non-violent offenders exceeds billions of dollars and much of that money is coming from the taxpayers' pockets. One way to address this problem is to reverse the current trend of putting first time, non-violent drug offenders in prison and instead sentence these offenders to boot camp and counselling combined with family support.…
Overpopulation in the Prison System has been a growing concern in society. An explanation for this is the rise in crime over the past years. As the crime rate increases so do the amount of convictions, which leads to more incarcerations and overpopulation in the Prison System. The cause for the increase in crime over recent years has been partly attributed to the disappearance of jobs.…