America is a vast nation. A lot of land welcomes a lot of people; all types of people. This includes people who commit a crime. Americans have often viewed crime with punishment. The saying “don’t do the crime, if you can’t do the time” is common. More people than we think are experiencing this phrase. The US is the leader for number of incarcerations, despite a drop in crime by 40% over the last 20 years. According to prisonpolicy.org, a non-profit that promotes prison reform, there are 2.3 million incarcerated and only 7,000 facilities. This leads to overpopulated prisons despite the decrease in crime. Prison overpopulation may seem like a positive for some people. They may think that means the justice system is working and criminals are off the streets. However, overpopulation is a whole different matter. California had to reduce its prison population after the supreme court ruled that their overpopulation was “cruel and unusual punishment”. This is because living conditions become so deteriorated. For example, there becomes a shortage of beds and overall living space.
There is also an economic drawback. The large amount of prisoners results in a lot of money coming from taxpayers in order to fund the prisons. In a 2012 study by the Vera Institute of Justice, the study found that taxpayers were paying in total $39 billion dollars. The expenses are jaw dropping. Of the $39 billion, $5.4 billion were expenses beyond the states’ spending. Costs of prisons, when broken down, include prison programs but also employee costs and benefits. The study found that $613 million alone was going to employee benefits and taxes. The picture below reveals how much prison expenses went beyond the intended budget in 2010.
How does overpopulation affect this? The more prisoners, the more staff a prison needs, which increases the amount spent on employees.
Possible solutions include decreasing the crime rate. New York, for instance, lowered their incarceration rate by 19% and their crime rate by 21% from 2000-2012 by having more patrol officers. The Huffington Post reported on 10 ideas. Some include ending minimum sentencing, which allows the judge more discretion and to make the punishment fit the crime. Another way is to not prosecute drug crimes as heavily. Since the ‘War on Drugs’ began, many prisons have become filled because of drug-related offenders. While it is good that dealers and users are off the streets, perhaps it may be more beneficial to send them to a drug rehabilitation center. Prison overcrowding stems from long sentences and many minor crimes resulting in prison terms. Another potential fix would be to reduce sentences for good behavior. Sentence reduction allows for inmates to leave sooner and make room for incoming ones.
A change in mentality may also help reduce prison overcrowding. The current view is to punish offenders. Hank Green was approached to do a video on an issue he found important and he chose prison reform. In the video he does a breakdown and examines the prison system. He goes on to say how the American prison system focuses more on punishment than any other part. What get’s most overlooked is the rehabilitation. Offenders will one day be back into civilian life. However, they do not always necessarily receive the tools to return to life outside of prison. The statistics for offenders going back to prison is daunting. Putting in place more education programs and job programs may help to decrease the return rate, and ultimately the prison population.
I was very intrigued to learn more about this topic after reading an article for my criminology class. It described the consequences of sentences, which peaked my interest into prison reform. I also was intrigued when I related it to Orange is the New Black. While the show’s main theme is Piper’s romantic struggles as well as her journey to adapt to prison life, there are real problems depicted. Such as the issue of budgets, policies, and overall justice. I thought it would be interesting to explore the problems with our correctional system. While it is not an issue that we may face daily, it is an issue that still impacts us. The financial aspect alone is a major component of why it is a non-discriminating issue. I hope to use this blog to discuss prison reform topics.
• If you were a legislator, how would you propose prison reform?
• Do you think spending money on rehabilitation programs may be beneficial or detrimental in trying to reduce the prison population?
• Do you think judges should have more control over sentencing?
For more information:
The Many Causes of America’s Decline in Crime– An interesting article by The Atlantic about incarceration rates and crime rates.
Jonah Strenski says
If I were a legislator, I would focus on punishment, lowering recidivism, and integrating criminals back into society. Rehabilitation and getting rid of mandatory minimums are key to lowering the recidivism rate for drug offenses. Giving judges the freedom to implement justice as they see fit not only would decrease prison populations, but it would also increase the fairness in our judicial system.
Ceci Richardsen says
I think that this is a great topic for a civic issues blog. I have read about issues in prisons from multiple prospectives; on one hand there are the deteriorated prisons that provide nearly unlivable conditions, but on the other hand there are a number of “country club prisons” that offer many white collar criminals a comfortable place to do their time. How is funding for these different types of prisons allocated? There are certainly many factors to be considered when looking at prison reform. I think that there should be more rehabilitation programs available to help prisoners turn their lives around and even become contributing members of society. I look forward to seeing where you take this blog next time!
Hannah says
In light of the prison reform video project we watched at the end of fall semester, I’m glad to become more informed about this topic! I think it is a very touchy issue for our society, especially because the safety of citizens is at risk. As a legislator, I would certainly gain the opinions of my constituents before pursuing reform. There is something to be said for the fact that our prison system focuses very little on reform, and I feel that spending money on reform would help improve the overpopulation problem. However, spending additional money is not always an option. Before reform programs were implemented, I would want to see a detailed proposal of where the funds for new programs were coming from.
jxz5288 says
This is a very interesting topic due to the fact that prison spending is always prevalent in the process of creating a state budget. Currently the state of Pennsylvania spends more on prisons than on it’s public colleges. I was wondering what is your viewpoint on this topic, do you believe that the state of Pennsylvania should spend more money on education than on prisons? Or do you believe that overcrowding is a big enough problem that they should be spending more money on prisons than on education?