Description
Major Research Assignment
The course will culminate in your producing a 10–15 pages well written and researched paper on a topic in criminal justice of your choosing. Your paper must be a critical analysis of your chosen topic, based in the appropriate theory and methodology, with summary and description kept to a bare minimum. The paper will be a demonstration of your understanding of, and ability to comply with, APA (6th Ed.) formatting guidelines, library research, and plagiarism-free writing. Your paper should include a title page, an abstract, a references page, and at least ten academic sources. The sources should be properly listed on the references page and correctly cited / referenced throughout the text of your literature review.
THIS IS THE COMMENT I HAD FOR THE LITERATURE REVIEW
The introduction needs a thesis statement and outline of the paper. The literature review should flow so remove bold reference at the start of each.
You did a good job summarizing the various articles separately but you need to look for themes, similarities, contradictions across the articles. For the final paperwork on weaving the literature together to make an argument.
* I will upload the document with the comments made and also the first thesis document.
This is now the final Paper.
Your paper must be a critical analysis of your chosen topic, based in the appropriate theory and methodology, with summary and description kept to a bare minimum. All written work submitted must be in APA format and have appropriate citations.
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Prison Overcrowding
Format – Essay
Introduction
•
Overview
Part One
Introduction
➢ In the contemporary setting, prison overcrowding is a pertinent subject influencing the United
States justice system. All across the nation, the issue of prison overcrowding has deteriorated to
the extent of infringing on citizen constitutional civil rights. The war on drugs commenced during
the Nixon era espoused long-lasting effects in packed courtrooms and prison systems.
➢ Additionally, harsher penalties on come petty crimes are augmenting this problem. Consequently,
a limited number of public defenders, harsher sentences for minor offenses, and Sentencing
policies are the leading contributors of prison overcrowding in are increasingly resulting in the
United States correctional system's overstraining.
➢ Essentially, the US penal system requires legislation alterations that render new actions illegal.
For many years, the legislature and the criminal justice system have espoused a tough on crime
approach. Overstrained public defenders lack the resources and time to build a solid defense for
all their cases due to the augmented caseloads they encounter.
➢ Overcrowding emanates from the incapability of prisons facilities to accommodate or receive or
extra inmates. Consequently, authorities institute emergency measures to help deal with such
intricacies including emergency accommodation, or keeping offenders or prisoners police
stations. United States Prison Service Department affirms that overcrowding has become a
perpetual intricacy. The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) recommends the ideal
that prison facilities must espouse.
➢ Despite these recommendations, there is practically no methodical information or data obtainable
to facilitate the smooth evaluation of whether the facilities adhere to the set standards or assist in
comparing various facilities in different jurisdictions (UNODC, 2013). Furthermore, low data
exist indicating the perception of prisoners towards overcrowding.
➢ The lack of space that new inmates can occupy in correctional facilities has resulted in
overcrowding in these facilities. For instance, the past two decades have witnessed an over
operational capacity at Connecticut's prisons.
➢ There are societal issues that many of these criminals face that push them back into recidivism,
such as scarcity, a shortage of employment or education opportunities, drug or alcohol use and
abuse, exposure to criminal operators, mental illness, and racial disparity. The cycle of getting out
of jail or prison and going right back in creates a population increase and does not help reduce the
overpopulation of inmates. In Connecticut, leaders formed a committee to scrutinize why there is
such overcrowding in the state and what they could do to fix the problem.
➢ Consequently, vulnerability will haunt the definitive objective of safeguarding the public
(Connecticut General Assembly Office of Program Review and Investigations, 2000). Until a
solution to lower crime suffices, or authorities set aside funding for more prisons, or curb the
tough on crime stance's enthusiasm, it will be difficult to reduce the overpopulation of prisons in
the United States.
➢ Suppose the United States wants to thwart overpopulation and decrease crime. In that case,
authorities need to work more on rehabilitating the community rather than incarcerating them and
just letting them stay prison for years.
➢ Arguably, the federal government's policies since the 1970s have helped compound the problem
of overpopulation in the incarceration system. In June 1971, President Nixon declared war on
drugs. The president radically amplified the presence and magnitude of the federal drug control
agencies. Additionally, the president incorporated stringent measures, which enclosed
compulsory sentencing, and no-knock warrants.
➢ Correspondingly, the 1910s anti-marijuana laws in the South West and Midwest were directed at
Mexican Americans and immigrants. Nowadays, Latino and black communities are still subject to
wildly inconsistent drug enforcement and sentencing.
➢ Due to this, the United States has incarcerated a considerable percentage of its citizens compared
to any other jurisdiction in the world. Surprisingly, more than half of these incarcerations are
drug-related. In the 1980s, the United States had fifty thousand individuals in prison for drugrelated violations. Currently, the nation has more than half a million inmates.
➢ On the other hand, drugs remain extensively accessible, while treatment resources are inadequate.
Besides, the war on drugs has resulted in the defunding of other significant services and a loss of
billions of taxpayer’s funds. Furthermore, money channeled into drug enforcement has resulted in
the underfunding of severe crimes and left essential sectors like the education and health sectors
struggling to meet their obligations due to inadequate funding.
➢ Since then, the United States employed all the necessary means including erecting checkpoints,
patrols, using sniffer dogs, installing cameras, and heat sensors, motion detectors, drone aircraft.
Additionally, authorities even put up more than one thousand miles of steel beam, heavy mesh,
and concrete walls stretching from Texas to California (Associated Press, 2010).
➢ Another method could be to increase the accessibility, affordability, and entrée to drug treatment
programs. An anticipated eighty to ninety percent of individuals who could benefit from
treatment but are not receiving it could join the programs.
➢ Additionally, authorities must target the nation's youth to impede the problem before it stems.
Studies indicate that most individuals initially abuse drugs in their teenage years. Studies further
suggest that in 2013, there were just over two million new users of illicit drugs or close to seven
thousand new users daily. Of this figure, more than half were under eighteen years of age
(National Institute on Drug Abuse, 2015).
➢ Suppose Americans are willing to change the outlook on drugs and drug use. In that case, we can
decrease the population of our prison systems while at the same time increasing tax revenue,
giving us much needed money that we could then allocate to additional public defenders, and
giving the youth a brighter future.
➢ Such endeavors will lower the initial caseload of the already overworked public defenders while
at the same time allowing the states to hire more attorneys so that all people in the justice system
can get a defense attorney that has time to represent them.
➢ In the United States, civil liberties are certain absolute rights that citizens retain under the United
States Constitution. Although prisoners lose some of these civil rights, they still maintain
individual rights, including the right to life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness, free speech, freedom
of worship, assembly, and the right to avoid cruel and unwarranted.
➢ Besides, studies indicate a high prevalence of HIV among inmates despite significant
sensitization and public awareness programs that happen globally. Similarly, the rates of sexually
transmitted infections (STIs), hepatitis B, and C, among other health conditions like TB, are
estimated to be ten times higher within the facilities compared to the overall population
(UNAIDS, 2014). In specific settings, estimations are that the burden of HIV among inmates may
stand at fifty times above that of the entire population.
➢ Widespread infringements that most prisons make enclose poor medical treatment, offering the
inmates unsanitary or hazardous conditions, sexual or physical assault, and threats against
inmates to dishearten them from complaining to authorities concerning appalling prison state of
affairs.
➢ Additionally, overcrowding in prisons fuels riots, assaults and creates unconstitutional conditions
for prisons. This overcrowding also creates unsafe work environments for the guards and
unlivable conditions for the inmates. Due to this, organizations such as the American Civil
Liberties Union (ACLU) have filed lawsuits against the states that do not offer the proper support
and staffing required running a prison constitutionally.
✓ Conclusion
➢ Overcrowding in prisons is a significant concern affecting the United States justice system that
lacks a clear solution on how to resolve it. The United States has more individuals incarcerated
per capita than any other jurisdiction in the world. This overcrowding is due to the lack of space
for new inmates. Additionally, repeat offenders, particularly the lower class citizens who the
system releases from prison and feel as if they have no other choice but to commit crimes to
survive in their communities, also contribute to this overcrowding.
➢ Until authorities figure out a way to lessen the number of offenders, increase the rehabilitation
programs, stop the war on drugs, and offer individuals proper defense counsel while going
through the court systems, then the problem of overcrowded prisons will persist in the United
States.
References
Bureau of Democracy (BoD) (2013). Report on International Prison Conditions: Global
Conditions in Prisons and Other Detention Facilities: New York, Bureau of Democracy,
Human Rights, and Labor.
Carson, A. (2015). Trends in U.S. Corrections: Washington, D.C., The Sentencing Project.
Connecticut General Assembly Office of Program Review and Investigations. (2000). “Factors
Impacting Prison Overcrowding.” Retrieved from
http://www.ct.gov/opm/lib/opm/cjppd/cjresearch/recidivismstudy/whatiscausingprisonov
ercrowding.pdf
Kenning, C. (2017). “U.S. civil rights group sues Nebraska prisons for overcrowding.” Retrieved
from https://www.reuters.com/article/us-nebraska-prisons-lawsuit-idUSKCN1AW2GG
Lauhgland, O. (2016). “The human toll of America's public defender crisis.” Retrieved from
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/sep/07/public-defender-us-criminal-justicesystem
Miron, J., Waldock, K. (2010). “The budgetary impact of ending drug prohibition.” Retrieved
fromhttps://object.cato.org/sites/cato.org/files/pubs/pdf/DrugProhibitionWP.pdf
National Institute on Drug Abuse. (2015). “Drug Facts.” Retrieved from
https://www.drugabuse.gov/publications/drugfacts/nationwide-trends
Rob, A. (2010).Current Situation of Prison Overcrowding: London, UK, International Centre For
Prison Studies, King’s College London, University of London.
Swendsen, J., Burstein, M., Case, B., Conway, K. P., Dierker, L., He, J., & Merikangas, K. R.
(2012). Use and abuse of alcohol and illicit drugs in US adolescents: Results of the
National Comorbidity Survey–Adolescent Supplement. Archives of general
psychiatry, 69(4), 390-398.
UNAIDS (2014).Prisoners: Geneva, Switzerland, The GAP Report.
Attached. Please let me know if you have any questions or need revisions.
Running Head: PRISON OVERCROWDING
1
Prison Overcrowding
Instructor’s name
Institution
Course
Date
2
PRISON OVERCROWDING
Prison Overcrowding
Introduction
In the contemporary setting, prison overcrowding is a pertinent subject influencing the United States
justice system. All across the nation, the issue of prison overcrowding has deteriorated to the extent of
infringing on citizen constitutional civil rights. The war on drugs commenced during the Nixon era
espoused long-lasting effects in packed courtrooms and prison systems. The burdened judicial system
mostly relies on public defenders. The lack of real defense has created an excess of unjust convictions
throughout the years, consequently exacerbating prison overcrowding. Thousands of United States
citizens, who have received sentences for crimes they never committed, further crowd the current
correctional system. Additionally, harsher penalties on come petty crimes are augmenting this problem.
Consequently, a limited number of public defenders, harsher sentences for minor offenses, and
Sentencing policies are the leading contributors of prison overcrowding in are increasingly resulting in the
United States correctional system's overstraining.
Essentially, the US penal system requires legislation alterations that render new actions illegal. For
many years, the legislature and the criminal justice system have espoused a tough on crime approach.
Overstrained public defenders lack the resources and time to build a solid defense for all their cases due to
the augmented caseloads they encounter. Since 1963, the country's incarceration rate has more than
quadrupled, with up to ninety percent of criminal defendants in the United States lacking adequate
resources to make them deal with these cases (Laughland, 2016). The criminal justice system operates
like a fast-food joint where a client comes in and receives their sentence and move on, rather than a
justice system where every individual gets a fair trial; the judicial system seems overburdened and backed
up that it just has to push every individual through it.
PRISON OVERCROWDING
3
Overcrowding emanates from the incapability of prisons facilities to accommodate or receive or
extra inmates. Consequently, authorities institute emergency measures to help deal with such intricacies
including emergency accommodation, or keeping offenders or prisoners police stations. United States
Prison Service Department affirms that overcrowding has become a perpetual intricacy. The International
Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) recommends the ideal that prison facilities must espouse. For
instance, the committee affirms that the minimum space that each inmate within a facility should occupy
must be more than 3.4 square meters per area, with a perimeter of 20 to 30 square meters per person (Rob,
2010). Additionally, the ICRC has minimum rates ideal for air circulation or renewal within the facilities,
and the strength or amount of requisite. Despite these recommendations, there is practically no methodical
information or data obtainable to facilitate the smooth evaluation of whether the facilities adhere to the set
standards or assist in comparing various facilities in different jurisdictions (UNODC, 2013).
Furthermore, low data exist indicating the perception of prisoners towards overcrowding.
The lack of space that new inmates can occupy in correctional facilities has resulted in
overcrowding in these facilities. For instance, the past two decades have witnessed an over operational
capacity at Connecticut's prisons. This increased strain is even though since 1990, authorities have
endeavored to increase their facilities' bed capacity and decrease arrests and crime rates in this
jurisdiction. The nation's war on drugs that focuses on the prosecution and policing efforts rather than
focusing on rehabilitation processes has resulted in an augmentation of these numbers. Studies indicate
that offenders' rehabilitation is vital as it helps in reintroducing them back into the public and offers them
opportunities to reform and become industrious community members, instead of becoming repeat
offenders who they often become. Offenders must receive an outlet that permits them to get back into the
mainstream workforce and give them fundamental skills other than dealing drugs in the streets.
There are societal issues that many of these criminals face that push them back into recidivism, such
as scarcity, a shortage of employment or education opportunities, drug or alcohol use and abuse, exposure
to criminal operators, mental illness, and racial disparity. The cycle of getting out of jail or prison and
PRISON OVERCROWDING
4
going right back in creates a population increase and does not help reduce the overpopulation of inmates.
In Connecticut, leaders formed a committee to scrutinize why there is such overcrowding in the state and
what they could do to fix the problem. In its report, the committee distinguished a workable, long-term
resolution to the prison overcrowding menace. The committee asserted that interventions must extend
beyond merely increasing prison beds. It found out that interventions must address the collective impact
of the various inmates who, in the end, return to or remain in their neighborhoods. The committee further
noted that unless authorities found out ways of curbing their criminal activity, any good cutbacks in
illegal activities or the prison population would be intricate to realize.
Consequently, vulnerability will haunt the definitive objective of safeguarding the public
(Connecticut General Assembly Office of Program Review and Investigations, 2000). Until a solution to
lower crime suffices, or authorities set aside funding for more prisons, or curb the tough on crime stance's
enthusiasm, it will be difficult to reduce the overpopulation of prisons in the United States. This factor
demonstrates the need to find a way to change the system in overcrowded prison populations. Without
some change or more funding, the United States will continue being the world's leader in the number of
overpopulated prison facilities. The US population supposed to be free land, unfortunately, the country
has more cit...