Prison system in the united states - Term Paper Example

 Prison System in the United States The increasing population of the world has caused an increase in crime rates leading to large correctional staff, severe punishments and expansion in prison and jail systems. United States of America being one of the largest countries of the world faces the same problem. The measures to control the criminals should also increase in line with the increasing crime rate and every possible step is being taken to lower it down to an acceptable level. The prison system has grown massively in America over the last few decades. The prison system established today is 10 times bigger than it was in 1970s. The need for large prisons has led to the formation of privately operated prison facilities, additionally prisons operated at the state and federal level also increased their capacities to accommodate the changes made. Further it is estimated to increase by a greater number in next few years. It is presumed that crime can only be controlled if prison system gets bigger and severe punishments are levied to forbid people from indulging in criminal activities. It could be true to a certain level but critically big systems have disadvantages which outweighs the advantages of the system overall. (Lynch, Micheal, J. 2007; Blakely, Curtis, R. 2005) It is often believed in America that the prison and criminal justice systems promote economic and social inequalities and it has an unequal and unfair effect on poor, the American minorities and less privileged class of the society. It has adverse effects on not only the prisoners but also on the families and the closed ones. The groups and people who are influential, wealthy and resourceful control the whole criminal justice and control mechanism, as they are in a position to exercise greater influence through the legal process hence suppressing the poor. One of the face of injustice in the system is that it is believed that the prisons are used to lock up those individuals of the society who has been involved in the most serious offences and are a threat and disgrace to the society, which is proved wrong by the revelation of the fact that American prison system incarcerates the drug users who usually belongs to lower class and the upper lower class of the society- It sees crime as an activity of lower class only. Usually, the American blacks (minorities) are involved in criminal activities due to their racial discrimination in America, hence they are the ones most incarcerated. The prisons and jails in America are usually situated in the urban locality which makes the prisoners and staffs feel isolated from the people and make it difficult for the families and the closed ones to meet the prisoner. It does not only affect the people involved in the system but also affect their families. (Lynch, Micheal, J. 2007; Blakely, Curtis, R. 2005) Previously the inmates were given freedom to access the judiciary to defend their cases which was in accordance to the constitution and was an ethical practice. The Civil Rights Act allowed the inmates regardless of race and gender to file a suit against any mistreatment, violence, medical ignorance or any such unethical practice. With the passage of time the system developed more flaws and attempts were made to weaken this Act. It is considered that unsuccessful lawsuits are costly and are an additional expense which lead to reconsideration whether access to the court should be granted freely to all inmates or not resulting into reduced chances of inmates to defend their cases and approach courts which was their only way to hold prison operators legally accountable against any mistreatment. (Blakely, Curtis, R. 2005; American Assembly.1973) The legal system in America has gone through many changes over time mostly influenced and affected by scholarly work and studies on human behavior and psychology. It is widely believed that there is a positive correlation between the deterrence of crime and severance of punishment. The severe the punishment the lower the crime rate will get. This approach has lead to large police forces, severe punishments, increase sentence lengths and expansion in prison and jail systems. Severe punishments are often confused with snatching away the elementary rights of the inmates. In many American jails and prisons the inmates are treated inhumanly, standards of humanity are violated and they are deprived of their basic rights and needs like meeting their families, practicing their religion freely etc. Expansion in prison system is also derived from this approach, the larger the prisons and jails the more law offenders are kept into, thus leaving the society free from criminals and crime rate can be significantly low. But there is a persistent question about the correctness and validity of this approach. Critics suggest that there is no best approach to the system and big prison systems don’t necessarily act as an effective crime control strategy. The expansion in prison and jail systems only ‘add’ to the expenses incurred and in this dynamic world, where we have to compete with many other nations of the world economically, we can not afford spending aimlessly at the cost of widening the prisons. Steps should be taken in order to improve the quality of lives of prisoners, local jails and work houses. Some suggests that there should be a greater local community involvement besides involvement of the federal and state government, minimum standards should be well defined and a strong control process should be in place to conduct inspections. (Lynch, Micheal, J. 2007; American Assembly.1973) Rehabilitation in American prisons has always been a topic for debate too. The objective of rehabilitation is that inmates when once leaves the prison should go as a law abiding citizen while on other hand some believe the American prisons and jails have failed to fulfill its objective. Rehabilitation aims to provide inmates with some sort of training and education which can make them quite the criminal lifestyle and help them to become a citizen healthier for society. Some people believe that American prison system fails in fulfilling this objective too and doesn’t provide with adequate training and education due to lack of resources and the inmates pretend to act actively in the training in order to gain benefits. While many who spent time in rehabilitation finds the training irrelevant for them and for the society when they go out of prisons. Even probation and parole programs have not helped in the rehabilitation process due to inadequate resources, poor facilities and lack of appropriate decision making. Further, rehabilitation can be a costly process and lack of resources acts as a hurdle in the effective rehabilitation process. People often find the rehabilitation process difficult to justify, its costs exceeds the benefits obtained out of it. It doesn’t necessarily benefit the inmate and is a confirmed expense on the part of the prison system. To deal with the rehabilitation problems and make it more effective many steps and measures have been taken and further actions are planned to be taken in future. Rehabilitation should include proper services like vocational training and counseling and in order to design the whole process input from ex-offenders, inmates, para-professionals shall be taken as these people have more in-depth knowledge about the relevance and effectiveness of the system. The federal and state governments should allocate more resources in order to implement the processes more effectively. (Blakely, Curtis, R. 2005; American Assembly.1973) In addition to the training and education provided to the inmates, the concept of inmate labor is closely related. Like most of the prisons in the world American prisons have inmate labor to train them as factory laborers so that once they are released from the prison they can get employed easily and help them in quitting the criminal life. There is an increasing trend for inmates to not only work with in the prison but also most of them are employed in the public and private sectors. It is interesting to know that the inmates not only work for factories but they also work for big companies. One of the problems associated with inmate labor practices is that there is no proper or fair reward system for the work done by them. At times the inmate doesn’t get paid at all; even if he does get paid it is a very nominal amount of money only when inmate exceeds a certain target and the productivity is high. In this way the inmate goes through training and learns skills that he can utilize after his imprisonment but on the other hand the practice is unethical and the inmate might get not get motivated. In the past the goods produced by the inmate workers were not allowed to be sold in the free market. This is not the case now; the Act allows the goods produced by the inmate workers to be sold freely in the market. This caused concerns about the use of inmate labors; many believe that inmate laborers will now be viewed as cheap labor and a commodity to win market which will eventually lead to their exploitation. (Lynch, Micheal, J. 2007; American Assembly.1973) Growth and expansion in the prison system is also closely related to the economic conditions. Research shows that crime rate, number of inmates and offenders increase tremendously in time of economic crisis and unemployment. Critics argue that steps should be taken not to expand the prison system but to control the reasons of these problems. Expansion in the prison system is no solution, a longer term strategy to control unemployment should be adopted to lower down crime rate. (Lynch, Micheal, J. 2007) Many writers have argued that the prison system in America is growing and that can be a major cause of concern in the long run. In the near future the government has to deal with the expenses of running a large prison system in the time of economic crisis. (Lynch, Micheal, J. 2007) Due to racial discrimination and segregation in America, the American blacks are the victims of social poverty and unemployment. Such conditions lead to lack of education, poor lifestyle and deprivation of basic needs which make them indulge in criminal offences. The prisons in America has a large number of minorities (American blacks mostly) and with the growth and expansion planned it will increase the number more which can result in racial tensions. (Lynch, Micheal, J. 2007) The most debatable issue these days is about the ‘cost’ of the large prison system. Emphasis is placed on the expansion of prisons and jails as it is assumed it helps in lowering down the crime rate. The larger the prisons the more law offenders are kept into these prisons. There are not only financial costs related to it but this can also be a cause of social and human costs. If we keep on locking up inmates and ignore them they might involve in more criminal activities once they are released. Some people argue that alternatives for large prisons should be found out such as increasing employment and improving the educational system and standards of life. In this way resources will be allocated to more productive plans rather than expansion of prisons. (Lynch, Micheal, J. 2007) The problems in the American prison system are not only associated with inmates, offenders and prisoners but the correctional staff also faces many issues in this system. The correctional staff is often inexperienced and is unaware how to deal with inmates. Due to lack of resources they are often not provided with competitive salaries which ultimately hinder the recruitment of the most competent staff required. Correctional staff needs to be provided with training and workshops and government needs to allocate more resources for their training development and upgrade pays in order to build an effective system. Recruitment of more members of minority groups can help in improving the system. (American Assembly.1973) Another concept that has emerged in the prison system recently is privatization of prisons. In such an arrangement the government out sources the prison facilities in the private sector. Such arrangements have advantages like smaller private prisons are easy to operate and data are readily available, simultaneously these prisons have many disadvantages too, since it’s a profit making arrangements the objectives and ideologies in a privately operated prison is way different from that operated under the government at the Federal and state level. The prison system is now seen more as a profit business- The privatization has led to the profit being the priority rather the inmates. Secondly in contrast to previous system, now inmate labor is also seen as a profitable business. Traditionally the inmates benefits and success was of paramount importance; after implementation of the Act that allows goods produced by the inmate labor to be sold in free market the importance is now placed on financial rewards which the stakeholders like employees and the owners get. The prison system looks more like a business. (Blakely, Curtis, R. 2005; American Assembly.1973) Many flaws have been identified, discussed and corrected in the American prison system. Over the decades constant efforts have been put to reduce down the criminal rate and the number of inmates. For an effective prison system that can control the crime rate standard policies should be set. The quality of services and facilities should be improved. Prisoner’s rights should be protected and they should be provided with the same facilities as that of a free citizen except where there are security concerns. The inmates should be given freedom to access the judiciary to hold any correctional staff accountable for the mistreatment. Special steps should be taken for the development of inmates and polices should be designed regarding their education and training. Ex-offenders and inmates themselves should participate in the policy making in order to come up with a policy which is relevant to them. Government should allocate special funds for their development; their growth should be of paramount importance. Most importantly the government should focus on eradicating unemployment and poverty, which are the root causes of any criminal activity and growth in prison system. Efforts should be made to correct the existing system rather seeking expansion in prisons and jails. (American Assembly.1973) The growing population in America has growing criminal rates and prison system too. The systems operated at Federal and States level have controlled the overall law enforcing system, nevertheless there are many loopholes which are being discussed and suggestions have been made for the corrections. The idea is to improve the overall system of economy, social and political systems which will automatically lead to improvement in prison systems as they are all inter related. Inmate labor, problems of rehabilitation of inmates, provision of basic rights, American minorities being victimized, expansion and growth in the prison system, correctional staff’s problems, free access to judiciary and privatization of jails will continue to be the topics of debate. (Lynch, Micheal, J. 2007; Blakely, Curtis, R. 2005; American Assembly.1973) Works Cited Lynch, Micheal J. 2007. “Big prisons, big dreams: crime and the failure of America’s penal system” Blakely, Curtis R. 2005. “America’s Prisons: The movement towards profit and privatization” American Assembly. 1973. “Prisoners in America” Read More