Prison Population In The United States

For new inmate, the bus ride to prison, the processing at the prison reception center, and the belittling shouts from the inmates are all part of the early stage of what is known as prisonization (Clear, Cole, Petrosino, Reisig, 2015). It is the process whereby newly institutionalized individual are introduced to and come to accept prison lifestyles and criminal values; the learning of convict values, attitudes, roles, and even language (prison argot) (Schamelleger, 2001). The new inmates gradually learn the set of rules of conduct that reflect the

According to statistical data found in the Bureau for Justice Records, there are a number of problems that most prisons in the country face. The records indicate that the number of adult federal and state inmates increased from `139% in `1980 to 260% (Walker, 1999). As a natural default, the United States of America has the highest incarceration rate in the world. This in itself brings about one of the major problems that are faced in modern incarceration which is overcrowding in most prison facilities. The number of offenders in the country has increased rapidly over time while the country prison system has not really been able to cope with this rapid increase. Prisons intended for one or two inmates are now crowded with more than fifty individuals. Because of this most prisons are overcrowded and most of the facilities available are unable to cater for the needs of all the prisoners (Siegel, 2009).

Whenever you imagine prison, you think up ideas and violent images that you have seen in the movies or on TV.   Outdated clichés consisting of men eating stale bread and drinking dirty water are only a small fraction of the number of horrible, yet “just” occurrences which are stereotypical of everyday life in prison.   Perhaps it could be a combination of your upbringing, horrific ideas about the punishment which our nation inflicts on those who violate its’ more serious laws that keeps people frightened just enough to lead a law-abiding life. Despite it’s success in keeping dangerous offenders off the streets, the American prison system fails in fulfilling its original design of restoring criminals to being productive members of society, it is also extremely expensive and wastes our precious tax dollars.

In any given year now, incarceration rates has tripled with approximately 13 million people introduced to American jails in any given year. This increase in the prison population far outpaced the crime rate and the US population growth. Today, America has around 5% of the world’s population but a quarter of the world’s prison population.

Prison culture or the “values, norms and attitudes that inmates form in terms of institutional survival” (Bartollas, 2013), can be described in one of three models. The Deprivation Model describes the inmate’s behavior as the product of the environment, more specifically the attempt to adapt to that which he is deprived of as a result of incarceration (Bartollas, 2013). An example of such would be the pseudo family unit or physical relationships that inmates form as a result of the absence of such relationships while incarcerated.

After reading the book I have gained a new understanding of what inmates think about in prison. Working in an institution, I have a certain cynical attitude at times with inmates and their requests.

Prison Overcrowding: Prisons have become warehouses of human beings as opposed to institutions meant to provide a means to engage in restitution by delinquent individuals in society. “One necessary condition for rising incarceration rates has been the massive expansion in prison construction and capacity, without which prison populations could not have grown so dramatically” (Guetzkow & Schoon, 2015). As more prisons are being built, more delinquents are being incarcerated in order to fill them. “Prison facilities are filled 38 percent beyond rated capacity, with overcrowding being particularly acute in higher-security institutions” (Rowland, 2013).

In the 1970s and 1980s, a massive amount of inmates began fillin up the United States prison systems. This huge rate of growth in this short amount of time, has greatly contributed to the prison overcrowding that the United States faces today. In fact, the prisons are still filled to the seams. This enormous flood of inmates has made it practically impossible for prison officials to keep up with their facilities and supervise their inmates. One of the main reasons why many prisons have become overcrowded is because of states’ harsh criminal laws and parole practices (Cohen). “One in every 100 American adults is behind bars, the highest incarceration rate in the world” (Cohen). The amount of inmates in corrections systems, throughout the

The United States prison population has grown tremendously from approximately 500,000 to 2.3 million people in just three decades. We (U.S) spend almost $70 billion annually to place adults in prison and jails, to confine youth in detention centers, and to supervise 7.3 million individuals on probation and parole. California has the largest prison population in the country, with more than 170,000 individuals behind bars. In Los Angeles, more than half of current parolees live in neighborhoods that are home to less than 20 percent of the city 's adult residents. More than a billion dollars are spent every year to incarcerate people from these communities. At the same time, as of spring 2010, the Los Angeles Unified School District was projecting a deficit of $640 million in the 2010-11 academic year. As a result, district officials were planning to raise class sizes and lay off thousands of teachers and other school-based staff.

One major problem facing American prisons are the extremely high incarceration rates. According to a report released by the National Research Council, “The US rate of incarceration, with nearly 1 of every 100 adults in prison or jail, is 5-to 10-times higher than rates in Western Europe and other democracies.” (Zurcher, 2014, para. 3) Based on this report it is clearly illustrated that the incarceration rates are absurdly high in comparison to other major countries. Furthermore, strict sentencing laws and minor drug offences are a major contributor to America’s prison population. Miller writes, the US prison population grew by 700 percent due to an influx of drug arrests and tough sentencing laws. As of now 1.6 million people are behind bars in federal and state prison, leaving America with the largest prison population in the world (para. 11). With a 700 percent increase in prison population one question comes to mind. Does America have an increase in criminal activity compared to other countries? Despite the massive increase in incarcerations, crime has not increased significantly increased over the years, and prison doors are still clanking at an exorbitant rate.

Mass incarceration is a major issue in the United States. There are multiple theories as to why this has occurred. According to Martensen, the United States is five percent of the world’s population and we have 25% of the world’s inmates (Martensen, 2012). Statistics show since the 1970s the prison population has increased 300% from 1980 to 2000 and 500% in the last few decades (Patten, D. d., 2016). This appears to be due to the war on drugs during this time period. What is interesting is that even when the crime rate decreased the prison population continually increased.

You are no longer in your neighborhood, inside your own house. Hundreds, if not thousands of total strangers now surround you. Upon entering prison the realization hits you; things are done differently. There are various types of people, and they do things differently on “the inside.” You start

When we do research on daily prison life, we come across two typical but less than ideal situations: either social imaginaries cloud our judgment or information provided by the prisons themselves hide certain weak or bad aspects that they do not want to make public. We can also find information on TV, but most of the time it either exaggerates or minimizes the facts. In order to obtain more reliable information, we have to have access to people who are working or have worked in this institution, and such will be the sources of this essay. We will be describing and giving examples of prison violence according to three types of violence: sexual, physical and psychological violence.

Once you enter a prison, you are in a completely different world. The sound of the door as it closes drives the realization home: your freedom is gone. Whatever luxuries you had before are gone. Everything you once took for granted you now long for, and contemplate with reverence. This being the case, there are now two new sets of rules you have to follow: the rules of the staff, and the rules of the inmates. Of course, these will conflict, but you have to deal with it now. Prison subculture is different from the outside world and even varies between men’s and women’s. The men’s subculture is probably the better known of the two. It has its own set of ebonics, attitudes, statuses, and values. Inmates say that

When an individual is introduced to the prison life, after violating rules and laws, he or she must come to terms about the journey he or she are about to take behind bars in prison. No one can save them, or do their time for them, and a majority of their freedom has been stripped from them either temporarily or permanently. Prison life deals with all walks of life and is not discriminative toward any race. In this paper I will discuss my perspective on prison life, policies I would enforce an inmate’s need for respect, changes on correctional policy, and why people commit crimes.