Bexten
HUMS Rodney 300: EXPLORING RESEARCH
Final Dropbox
Overcrowding in Americas Prison System
ABSTRACT
In the early years of this country flogging, exile, branding, and the stocks were some of
the ways used to punish a guilty offender. Today, though, these types of punishments would
quickly be labeled as cruel and unusual forms of retribution. Since we can no longer utilize such
forms of punishment, the criminal justice system has turned to; imprisonment, probation, fines,
and even the death penalty to help and deter offenders from a life of crime. As the prison
population continues to rise in this country health and safety questions rise as well. Not only for
the prisoner but for also for the guards that are there to watch over and protect the inmates. It is
time to ask some very important questions regarding sentencing alternatives including; Do we
rely too much on the prison system, Are there better ways to punish some crimes? and
probably most importantly, Does prison truly act as a deterrent to crime?
The Bureau of Justices statistics in the recent years have shown a dramatic increase in
the prison population which has led to a large amount of United States prisons being
overcrowded. State prisons, on the average, are 16 percent over their capacity with Federal
prisons holding an average of 38 percent more inmates than their original construction capacity.
Overcrowding, though, is just part of the problem. Many of the prisons in America today are
rundown and substandard. Inadequate security is also an issue, often times lacking the personnel
to keep the inmates safe from assaults and other violations.
For years, it has been the belief of the American public, politicians, and criminal justice
authorities that crime rates in this country were just too large. It has also been the general
consensus that in order to stop the rising crime rates, there had to be a great push in the severity
of sentencing in the courtroom. Mostly this was done by way of utilizing the maximum sentence
for a crime in hopes of deterring others and decreasing the amount of recidivism. One other
method was to impose a minimum sentence for certain nonviolent crimes including; driving
while intoxicated, drug offenses, child molestation, spousal abuse, and sexual assault.
Over the past three decades, the United States has built the worlds largest prison
system. This system is ten times larger today than it was in the mid-1970s. As Americas prison
population has grown there has been a lot of debate on whether or not prison is working.
Arguably, all intents and purposes of a prison system are to deter crime. The hopes of our
criminal justice system, all of its judges, lawyers, and even the American people is that either
someone will not commit an offense with fear of going to prison or that if they do, they will not
do it again once they have stepped foot inside a correctional institution. Is this the case? Do
prisons in fact act as deterrents and reduce crime rates? Lynch goes on his book after a review of
several studies on the effects of prison as a deterrent to say, While sentencing reforms seemed to
reduce crime, they did so only by substantially increasing the size of the incarcerated population.
In light of this observation, and in an effort to avoid the problem of extensive prison growth, the
use of selective incapacitation strategies that carefully target specific kinds of offenders may be
of the more benefit.
Michael Jacobson is a former Commissioner of Probation for the City of New York,
appointed by Mayor Rudolph Giuliani, supports the fact that the use of prisons may not be the
deterrent we have been for hoping and is best suited for the most violent of offender. In his book,
Downsizing Prisons: How to Reduce Crime and End Mass Incarceration Jacobson explains;
After all is said and done, the number of people in the U.S. jails and prisonsalmost 2.2 million at the time of this writing-reflects a public policy gone mad.
Prisons and especially long prison sentences should be reserved for the most
violent among us. There is no need to lock away for years hundreds of thousands
of nonviolent drug offenders or to keep people in prison well past their crimecommitting years, effectively turning some prisons into the equivalent of secure
nursing homes.
It is easy to see that the use of harsh sentencing guidelines does not necessarily have the
effect that it once was thought to have. Not only that but now we are using and already
overcrowded prison system to punish minor crimes and to house parole violators. What is the
cost of such action? The answer simply put? Way to high. Over the years, the costs of running a
prison have increased dramatically. Today, it can cost well over $75,000 to build a single cell
and over $25,000 to house a prisoner for a year. Lets put this in an even better prospective by
saying that, in todays society, it could cost well over $330 million to build and run a 500 cell
prison over a period of 30 years. If a state struggling to run a prison has to obtain money, where
does it come from? More and more states are starting to shift funds from their higher education
departments. If states are taking money away from schools to fund prisons, it may be time for a
change.
There has to be to reduce the American criminal justice systems use of prison.
Community corrections legislators believe that there are several alternatives to prison from
which the court can choose from. One of the most popular types of intermediate sanctions is, of
course, probation. Probation is used in lieu of incarceration and affords the offender the ability to
be supervised in their community by a probation officer who works as an agent of the court.
Other types come in the form of; house arrest, electronic monitoring, shock probation (boot
camps), intensive supervision, day-reporting centers, community service, fines, restitution, and
forfeiture.
To make intermediate sanctions work and to decrease the reliability on the prison system,
there has to be a change in the sentencing guidelines for some crimes. We can no longer look to
prison to punish every crime that an offender may commit. Drug offenses, theft related crimes,
driving while intoxicated, parole violations, and other nonviolent crimes need to be handled in
the community with a combination of the intermediate sanctions mentioned earlier. Michael
Tonry, in his book, Intermediate Sanctions in Sentencing Guidelines supports this conclusion,
For offenders who do not present unacceptable risks of violence, well-managed intermediate
sanctions offer a cost-effective way to keep them in the community at less cost than
imprisonment and with no worse later prospect for criminality.
While prison has been leaned on for many years as a way to deter crime and to punish
offenders of the American criminal justice system, the increase reliability has led to a very
dangerous and expensive prison system. Overcrowding has led to violence, health concerns, and
substandard prison conditions. It is now time that we look to other means to punish offenders
who are not a great threat to society. Through the use of intermediate sanctions, I believe that
America can lower its prison population while at the same time punish offenders of state and
federal laws.
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