The U.S. has had
a long history of creating and amending laws that are intended to help keep its
citizens safe. It is no stranger to creating a law with the intent of creating
a good outcome, and instead it turns out to create just the opposite. America is a diverse country, that has seen
various cultures, ethnic groups, and fears impact the social order. Today,
America is seeing the affect of fears that lead to what people have called “get
tough” laws.
America
is only five percent of the world’s population; however, twenty-five percent of
the world’s prisoners are housed in American prisons (The Economist, 2012 &
Guerino, P., Harisson, P., & Sabol, W., 2011.) This disproportionate number
of inmates has brought about a grave issue concerning the overpopulation within
the prison walls. Prisons are almost
double the capacity of which they were initially built to withstand. An article published in the Prison Journal
(2012) showed that the Alabama state prisons contain 206 percent of their
capacity; that’s over twice the capacity of inmates the prison was intended to
hold (Martin, J., Litchenstein, B.,
Jenkot, R., & Forde, D., 2012.)
In California the prison population is almost double the capacity as
well. California state prisons were constructed with the intent of housing
80,000 inmates; however, today they house over 130,000 inmates (The Economist,
2012 & Guerino, P., Harisson, P., & Sabol, W., 2011.) This creates a problem not only for inmates,
but also for the prison staff, who due to budget cuts have fallen in numbers;
it communities will also be affected.
Since
the late 1980’s, which began the war on drugs, individual were being sentenced
to several years behind bars for minor drug offenses. Tough on crime laws such
as the three strikes law, put into effect in 1994, created a way to put more
repeat offenders behind bars for longer periods of time until eventually they
were slapped with a life sentence (LAO, 2005 & Navarrette, 2011.)
On
May 23, 2011 the Supreme Court ruled that the overpopulation of California
prisons was unconstitutional, making them lower their inmate population by the
year 2013 to 110,000 (Navarrette, 2011 & The Economist, 2012 & Guerino,
P., Harisson, P., & Sabol, W., 2011.)
The problems faced in the overpopulated prisons had to do with negligent
health care, as well as unseen inmate on inmate violence. Having the inmates so packed together and
having so many people sharing one toilet or other hygienic facilities is a way
of spreading sickness, and diseases (Unknown, 2012.) Not only is it easier to get sick, but
because there is so many inmates that need physicians attention, they have to
wait severely long periods of time to do so.
Also, inmates with mental disabilities do not have the adequate care
necessary to accommodate their illnesses (Biskupic, 2011.) When discussing the
issues with California prisons, Justice Kennedy of the Supreme Court commented
that "for years the medical and
mental health care provided by California's prisons has fallen short of minimum
constitutional requirements and has failed to meet prisoners' basic health
needs (Biskupic, 2011.)"
Also due to the overpopulated environment in
prisons, inmate violence often goes unnoticed.
There have been instances where inmates were found murdered in their
bunks; no one knew when it had happened because of how crowded the sleeping
quarters were (unknown, 2012.) Not
only do inmates suffer the consequences of the overpopulated prisons, but so do
the prison staff. Correctional officers
are unarmed and outnumbered, which can become very stressful and
frightening. Due to the economy there
are more prison personnel losing their job, but more inmates being taken
in. Correctional officers are now
working more; they are under trained, and tired making them more at risk of
being victims of violence by the inmates (Martin, J., Litchenstein, B., Jenkot, R., & Forde, D., 2012.)
Although
there has been some lowering of the population, California prisons have not yet
been able to get the number that the Supreme Court has ordered. They have now decided that they must lower
their numbers any way possible. There is a likely hood that prison inmates will
not only be sent to county jails like they have already, but also they will be
released early; this has become a concern for communities (Navarrette, 2011
& Chettiar, I., & Stamm, A., 2012 & Walker, 2012.) Some community members are afraid of the
impact of having more criminals released into society before they have
completed their sentence. They are
afraid of a rise in crime, or the effect that having ex-offenders in the area
may have on the real estate market (Walker, 2012.)
After
the Supreme Court ruling regarding California prisons, many other states took
the initiative and began trying to lower their inmate populations as well. Many
states have altered their sentencing guide lines making it possible to lower
the sentencing for non- violent crimes and lowering some drug laws to
misdemeanors rather than felonies. Some states have also begun to shut down
prisons and relocate their prisons to county jails (Navarrette, 2011, The
Economist, 2012 & Chettiar, I., & Stamm, A., 2012.) Due to the Supreme Court’s ruling California
has been sending large numbers of its prison inmates to county jail; Governor
Brown has named it the realignment. The realignment will allow inmates who have
committed non violent crimes, to go to county jail rather than prison (The
Economist, 2012 & Navarrette, 2012.) It is also possible for inmates to be
released early on good behavior and be placed under county supervision rather
than state or federal (Navarrette, 2011.)
When
it comes to American laws, I don’t think that there is ever a truly right way
to handle something. The economy and
society norms change all the time. The
decisions we make affect us throughout our life as we can see from the way our
economy today has dropped so severely. Many people would argue that criminals
shouldn’t complain because they have a bed and three meals a day, which is more
than some law abiding citizens have. I would argue that while that may be true,
they are still humans and should not be treated like animals; in some cases
animals are treated more humane than these prisoners.
The money taken from tax payers and put
toward the prison facilities is basically a way to keep all the law breakers in
a big room so that society doesn’t have to deal with them. We don’t want these criminals in our communities,
so we shove them into prisons and expect them to change. How can they change if there are no programs
available for them to help them learn new trades? We shove them in these prisons with other
people who can teach them other tricks of the criminal world; it is a never
ending cycle. If the overcrowding is stopped then it will allow room for some
of the rehabilitation programs that had not been affected by the state budget,
to return. It would lead to tax payers
saving more money, as well as ex-offenders being able to return into society
with a higher likely hood of actually staying out of prison. We can never be
sure what exactly the future holds, but we can try to make it better and hope
that we make decisions that will give us flexibility when we need it. Changing the overcrowding in the prison
population will be one of those flexible decisions. If changing the overpopulated prison systems
to help inmates rather than continually punishing them doesn’t work, then
stuffing the prisons to the seams can be done again.
Works Cited
Biskupic,
J. (2011, May 24). Supreme Court stands firm on prison crowding. USA Today. Retrieved from http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/judicial/2011-05-24-Supreme-court-prisons_n.htm
Chettiar, I., & Stamm, A. (2012,
June 24). [Web log message]. Retrieved from
http://www.aclu.org/blog/criminal-law-reform/states-take-sizeable-steps-2012-end-overincarceration
Guerino,
P., Harrison, P., & Sabol, W. (2011). Prisons in 2010. Bureau of justice statistics,
Retrieved from http://bjs.ojp.usdoj.gov/content/pub/pdf/p10.pdf
LAO.
(2005, October). A primer:
Three strikes - the impact after more than a decade. Retrieved from
http://www.lao.ca.gov/2005/3_strikes/3_strikes_102005.htm
Martin,
J., Litchenstein, B., Jenkot, R., & Forde, D. (2012). They can take us over
anytime they want: Correctional officers' response to prison crowding. The
prison journal, 92(1),
88-105. doi: 10.1177/0032885511429256
Navarrette,
R. (2011, May 26). Where does California put 33,000 released inmates?. CNN . Retrieved from
http://articles.cnn.com/2011-05-26/opinion/navarrette.california.prisons_1_prison-population-prison-overcrowding-high-court?_s=PM:OPINION
The
Economist. (2012, May 19). The challenge of "realignment". The economist. Retrieved from
http://www.economist.com/node/21555611
Unknown.
(2012, May 2). California prisons address overcrowding, remove last of nearly
20,000 extra beds. Huffpost
San Francisco. Retrieved from http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/03/02/california-prisons-overcrowding_n_1317722.html
Walker, C. (2012, May 21).
Overcrowded prisons: what to do?; a Christian science perspective. The
Cristian science monitor. Retrieved from
http://www.lexisnexis.com/hottopics/lnacademic/?verb=sr&csi=7945&sr=BYLINE(Channing)+w/3+Walker)+AND+HLEAD(Overcrowded
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