Essays on Incarceration

Should prisons be privatized?

Prison privatization is sustained by claims that facilities that are privately operated are cost effective at ensuring the provision of services compared to public institutions. Other evidence show that this assertion is not supported while others do. In addition, when turned into a for-profit industry, a few challenges will accompany incarceration centers. The following points argue for and against prison privatization Fiscal savings through cost containment: People who support private prisons assert that the private sector is saving the available resources through great efficiencies. Safety and services: Advocates claim that prison privatization has been successful in other industries with ...

America was beginning to become a powerful and vital nation in the world in the twentieth century. Power was based on the assumption that Americans felt the abundant life, which was a promise to the world along with the concept and experience of freedom. However, freedom was not experienced by everyone at home in America. Black people felt oppressed and marginalized all the days of their life. In the 1920s, America was beginning to grab attention in the international scene. Europe was fading, while America was appearing as a dominant nation. However, this is not because of the popularity ...

Introduction

Culture is the shared traditions, norms, values, arts, and the history shared by a certain group of people, and which is usually passed from one generation to another. These cultures may influence how these people access services and resources from professionals. Culture changes how people view the world and the role they play in the world. Culture shapes personal and group values and attitudes. This also includes perceptions regarding themselves their beliefs, myths and misconceptions (Murtha & O'Connor, 2011). Understanding culture helps professionals to avoid typecasts and any biases that may arise in their line of duty and may undermine ...

Abstract

The issue of how criminals are sentenced and treated is a problem within in the United States and around the world. The sentence given for a crime that is committed is not always equal from one state or region to another. Diversion programs are therefore a method that have been created to offer a second chance to first-time offenders and youthful offenders that are deemed worthy of a second chance. These programs are designed to be supervised and carried out by certified and experienced professionals at the behest of the court, and are meant to curb any and all ...

Organic Solidarity refers to the social unit that is founded on a division of labor, thus, giving rise to interdependence among people. In addition, the culture identified above is characterized by four core attributes. These include a large population spreading out over a larger geographical area, a legal system that is based on restituting sanctions and redressing social vices by restoring a situation to the previous state, complex labor division, and a growing level of individual freedom. Gesellschaft is a further important social culture. It describes a form of association in which the interests of the individual members are ...

Incarceration is used to deter juveniles from committing crimes, making the juvenile system more punitive. Serious juvenile crimes are those of a violent in nature, as reported in the FBI Uniform Crime Report. Juvenile arrests for robbery were alarming as this increased more than 30% since 2004 (Roberts 3). Female offenders for robbery have also increased, as reported in 1985 to 2002. Drug abuse violations rank next, but could also be the reason for committing robbery and violent crimes. This kind of juvenile offenses can be considered serious and needs more severe punishment. However, the question here is the ...

(Professor/Instructor) (Course/Major)

In the aftermath of the Civil War, the black slaves were given their rights and much of the same rights as those given to the “white” population. Many believed that the former slaves would soon be graduating to the level of their former slaves. However, this was not the case; in fact, over the next two decades, the former slaves would be stripped of everything these had gained in the wake of the war. In fact, the declination of the rights of the black people was not only supported, these were institutionalized by the adoption of the “ ...

There is a lot of debate in the government and scholarly sphere when it comes to when to and how to incarcerate people. A subdivision of that argument comes down to the actual housing that a prisoner is kept in while they are in prison. One method that is used for inmates who commit certain acts, either inside of or outside of prison, is solitary confinement. While this is deemed to be a way to prevent a prisoner from being a danger to others or even himself/herself while in prison, there are many that say that solitary confinement for ...

Incarceration appears to be one of the most popular forms of punishment for committing crime or other offences. The largest number of prison population is in the United States. According to a study, performed in 2013 by Lauren E. Glaze and Danielle Kaeble, statisticians by the U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS), about two million adults were incarcerated and others less than five million were under parole or probation. Totally 6 899 000 adult individuals were under the supervision of Criminal Justice System (prisons, jails, parole, probation) in 2013. (Glaze, L., Kaeble, D., 2013) With the establishment of prisons, ...

Incarceration

So far, the main purposes of incarceration are incapacitation, rehabilitation and integration. In the model of incapacitation, the prisoner is deterred from committing more crimes, and the security of the populace is under consideration. In the rehabilitation model, there are treatment sessions in the prison system in order to reform the prisoner, while integration has the objective of enabling prisoners to return to society such that they become productive members of it, and are able to maintain productive relations with family and acquaintances (Cole and Smith, 336).

What are some potential impacts of incarceration on an individual? the family? Their community?

One major impact of incarceration on an individual is psychological in nature. ...

Alternatives to Incarceration

Alternative to incarceration refers to a punishment other than involving jails or prison for an individual who is found guilty of a crime. There has been a history of alternative punishments with a special focus on past few decades. Here, it is also important to mention that juvenile are individuals that have not reached the mature age or have not grown into majors in legal terms (ACLU, 2016). So any crime committed by this category of individuals will be regarded as juvenile delinquency or juvenile crime. Several alternatives to incarceration for juvenile have been introduced over the period of ...

A Chart that Illustrates the Criminal Justice System

Differences between the steps in the Juvenile and the Adult criminal justice systems There are differences that exist between the juvenile and the adult court systems in the US. One such difference touches on the topic of legal proceedings. In the adult criminal justice system, the reason for accusing an adult is on the grounds of a crime and in such a case, the proceedings are referred to as trials. The reason for charging a juvenile is on the grounds of the youth having indulged in a delinquent act and such a case; the proceedings are referred to as ...

Gangs are another form of expressing dominance and control over one’s rights and beliefs, and a prison gang is made as a last resort to expressing these emotions since an incarcerated individual has no other likely choice. The absence of female gangs is a resultant of the operatives of a female mind. While incarcerated males have a need of expressing their domination in one way or the other, females, on the other hand, are devoid of such feelings. Moreover, gangs are a source of gratification of a set of people’s beliefs and ideas, and this is satisfied ...

The debate on whether minors should be held in the same stature as adults for equal crimes is one that has been raging on for a long period. The debate is occasioned by the enticing argument that any form of societal and criminal misconduct should always be tackled by undertaking tougher punishments on offenders regardless of age. However, applying the same metric of punishment to juveniles as adults is not the solution. It is especially the case considering that research indicates that minors that receive adult sentences become more likely repeat offenders as opposed to those that go through ...

Introduction

Exordium The death penalty is something which has existed for centuries in various countries, but recently it has been coming under increased scrutiny. More people are turning to the view that it is somehow inhumane, or perhaps that it is immoral to say that we who obey and make the law are better than those break and oppose it, while still committing the same acts as they do (presuming that the offenders are murderers, of course). It could be said that the death penalty was a simple solution for a simpler time. Today, not only do we have the ...

Abstract

The United States tops the list of the country with the highest number of incarcerated individuals. According to statistics released by the U.S Department of Justice, more than two million Americans were censored to be incarcerated with the local jail or prison. In late 1960, the United States realized the pressure overcrowding was impacting on the taxpayers. The government was spending a lot of money to take care of an individual in prison. Overcrowding led to the demand for better ways to deal with lawbreakers without necessarily taking them to prison, hence community-based correctional program. This paper analyses the ...

International Human Rights Law and Prisons in Africa

Term Paper 4500 words

Introduction

The International Centre for Prison Studies’ World Prison Brief, in its report suggested that over 10 million individuals are formally incarcerated in prison and correctional facilities around the world. According to the same Brief, even more are held in either military facilities where they are detained or in security or police facilities without any specific legal process underway. There are three categories that the United States’ (U.S). Government has for humanitarian and human rights concerns as they relate to these individuals who are housed in a detention facility that is; 1. unsafe in terms of ...

Response to Daryle Ryan

I agree with Ryan when he says that the best approach to helping drug offenders to reform is not locking them up in large institutions but rather in small units. For, when in small facilities, they are more likely to get individualized attention and supervision from the prison officers. This way, their rehabilitation process will be hastened and hence they will also feel that there is concern about their reentry back into the society. Hence, as Schmalleger (2016) notes, there has to be a change in management and administration of these institutions if the inmates are to stand a ...

According to Mackenzie (2002) about five million or more individuals are under criminal justice system supervision and authority in the United States of America. Close to 1.6 million are housed in local, state or federal correctional facilities. An estimated 70% of these individuals are supervised in either probation or parole, which are forms of community corrections. The suggestion here is that a large part of the correctional population at any one point is under the supervision of corrections in the United States (Bureau of Justice Statistics, 1997). About 3.8 individuals both men and women are in community parole and ...

IAS 45 Research Paper Outline

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EDFS 309: Journal review writing

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Thesis Paragraph

Immigration has generated interest both in political and in research worlds. The topics have been shrouded with ambiguities considering the dynamics of security and economic constraints. America not like any other nation has culturally diverse populations that coexist harmoniously curtsey of multiculturalism initiatives by the government. The integration of immigrants into the society has slowly evolved to be a complex exercise that requires security scans and consideration of socio-economical impacts of such settlement in the country. This paper identifies two stages of immigrants’ integrations, screening, and settling. The government should not perforate ...

Introduction

A career in nursing seems fulfilling, but nurses encounter challenging situations every day. Regardless of their roles, nurses face ethical dilemmas that may affect them and the patient. Importantly, there is no right or wrong solution to a particular ethical dilemma. However, nurses rely on the legal papers related to nursing standard of health care practice according to legal aspects of nursing. This paper involves the standard and legal relation between nurses and their patient. Even with the nursing standard of health care practice literature, ethical dilemmas still occur in healthcare institutions. The aim of this paper is to ...

There are several differences between probation and parole and this paper goes into detail to discuss the differences between these two and to give examples of each. According to Latessa and Smith (2015, p. 42), “probation represents one of the unique developments within the criminal justice system” and goes on to define probation as “a conditional sentence that avoids an offender being incarcerated; in other words, it is an alternative disposition available to the court.” Similarly, Petersilia (1997, p. 149) notes that The American Correctional Association defines parole as “a court-ordered dispositional alternative through which an adjudicated offender is ...

(Institute/College/University)

Prison establishment: concerns and issues

Over the last five years, the number of female inmates in US prisons has increased twice as that of the men. In the last decade, the numbers of correctional facilities that house both men and women have also risen. Though there were fears as to the possible repercussions of ‘blending’ male and female inmates in one institution, the changes that were evinced were for the better rather than for the worse. In one instance, noticeable improvements were seen in the conduct of the male inmates. However, some of the inmates have engaged in sexual relations with each other. ...

Reentry is an issue that has social, and public policy implications. Supervision and release as handled by parole has created more intensity among scholars. Many plausible factors have contributed to as to why offenders have a hard time re-entering the community successfully (Nally, Lockwood, Ho & Knutson, 2012). More than 700, 000 individuals are serving time behind bars. One of the main predictors of post-release recidivism is lack of employment (La Vigne, et al., 2008). It is difficult as for most jobs criminal background checks are required, which in itself is an obstacle and challenge in securing employment upon an ...

The goals of retribution, incapacitation, deterrence, rehabilitation, and restoration are all primary goals of those within the criminal justice system. In sentencing individuals charged with specific criminal actions the philosophic principles that such decisions are based upon should be considered. Through the use of methods such as fines, probation, imprisonment, and death the criminal justice system has utilized a variety of measures in order to more effectively enact justice. These measures have, furthermore, been broadly adopted in relation to the financial, social, and international context that the criminal system was established within. Concerns such as the impact that these ...

Proposition 36 - Literature Review

Before 2000 The three strikes law commonly referred to as Proposition 36 has had a long history. It started in the year 1994 when the state passed Proposition 184, which allowed courts to convict a person from 25 years to lifetime if that person had two or more serious convictions for a violent felony in the past. It also qualified the courts to double a person’s penalty of a convict if had been convicted of a felony before (Farabee et al., 2004). The initial attitude was that it was mandatory in all qualifying cases. This attitude came to ...

The paper will compare and contrast the custodial model of incarceration of the United States (U.S.) and the rehabilitation model of the United Kingdom (UK). Therefore, I will recommend which of these models is best suited to reduce the rate of recidivism.

Similarities

These models are similar in a couple of ways. First, both of them allow the correspondence or visitation of inmates in prison facilities (Hjalmarsson et al. 2011). Inmates are, therefore, free to communicate with their family members and friends through the phone or visits. Moreover, the incarceration and rehabilitation models offer medical services to inmates. These services ...

Alternatives to incarceration refer to any punishment for crime, which does not involve sending an offender to prison for a jail term (Joseph and Wesley 15). Such alternatives to incarceration include parole, probation, fines or community service. Having such alternatives to incarceration gives judges a wide range of sentencing options to judges. They also help to reduce congestion in state correctional facilities. Mostly these options are awarded to the less violent offenders, especially those that have been accused of dealing with petty crime or selling less harmful drugs and on a small scale. This paper will look into how ...

In Los Angeles County, California, the Probation Department is one of the largest bureaucratic organizations in the Unites States. Within this Department, there are adult and juvenile sectors. The juvenile sector is comprised of 3 juvenile hall facilities, and roughly about 23 residential treatment facilities, also referred to as camps, and lock down placements for juveniles with a vast array of social, and psychological issues. The facility that I attended was Central Juvenile Hall, which is located in East Los Angeles, California. Central Juvenile hall was established in 1912, and is the largest of the three probation juvenile halls ( ...

(Course/Major)

Independent Variables.7

Research Questions..8 Hypothesis....8 Conclusion..11

Introduction: Domestic violence: profile of an offender

In the past, an act of domestic violence was not considered as a matter that merits the engagement of the law. Though men have pummeled, maltreated, and molested their intimate partners for years, the common comprehension of society was that abuse and maltreatment of women was as a part of the marriage. It was only to the end of the 1970s that domestic violence was understood as a criminal offense that warranted the involvement of the criminal justice system. However, there has been much contention as to the establishment of a general, universally accepted ...

Over the years, several problems have emerged in relations to parole management. At some point in time, parole management posed several challenges that people began to think that perhaps it’s something that is relatively impractical; however, intense pressure was laid to law enforcement agencies to come up with programs that could effectively work. Parole is just but a status of a convicted offender being released conditionally from prison before the actual expiry of the incarceration period by a paroling authority (Donald, 2011). Due to this reason, the inmates are thoroughly supervised by the relevant authority; moreover, they are ...

Introduction

Cognitive Behavioral Interventions are approaches that use soft instruments to correct or enhance behavioral characteristics of individuals, either to comply with society expectations or to unlearn a particular behavior. A person with a drugs problem may be trained to handle the urges of taking drugs and avoidance of risky situations, with an aim of solving the problems. Cognitive behavioral therapy, commonly referred to as CBT, teaches the subjects a new set of skills designed to increase awareness of thoughts and emotions of an individual. The idea is to re-empower the individual to understand how certain exposures to situations, people ...

Theoretical Essay

In the world of law punishment (alternative name – penalty) is considered as an “infliction of some kind of pain or loss upon a person for misdeed (i.e., the transgression of a law or command).”1 Penalty may take different forms and vary from forced labor, flogging, body mutilation, fines and imprisonment to the capital punishment. The punishment has been very retributive, mostly in the form of revenge, during the pre-modern ages and usually the prosecution was executed by the victims or their families. There was not any proportion between the quantity and quality of wrongdoing and the punishment. The ...

INTRODUCTION

Human civilization has come a long way since it first began establishing communities and attempted to establish law and order. The reality is that there have always been criminals; people who for one reason or another break the laws established and require consequences for their actions. One of the most controversial discussions throughout history is what are the best means to admonish the offenders, protect law-abiding citizens and send a message of deterrence to other would-be offenders. That being said many different approaches to addressing offenders who commit crimes have existed throughout the ancient world to present day. One ...

Proposition 36 - Literature Review

Before 2000 The three strikes law commonly referred to as Proposition 36 has had a long history. It started in the year 1994 when the state passed Proposition 184, which allowed courts to convict a person from 25 years to lifetime if that person had two or more serious convictions for a violent felony in the past. It also qualified the courts to double a person’s penalty of a convict if had been convicted of a felony before. The initial attitude was that it was mandatory in all qualifying cases. This attitude came to change only in 1996 ...

Children's Bureau. Long-Term Consequences of Child Abuse and Neglect. Technical Report. Washington, DC: Child Welfare Information Gateway, 2013. Web. <https://www.childwelfare.gov/pubs/factsheets/sp_long_term_consequences.cfm>. The report addresses the life- long impacts of child abuse and categorizes the results into physical health, psychological, behavioral and societal. Abused children are at times inflicted with head injuries which may cause bleeding of the brain, which interferes with brain development. Relevant sections of the brain could also be tampered with hence causing incidences of long-term head trauma to the affected child. Child abuse according to the report is also linked to poor physical health where the ...

1. Define the ways in which each component (police, courts, and corrections) of the criminal justice system administers justice. Which component is most effective at meeting their goals? Police play the role of working with the public in order to enforce legal requirements and protect the privacy and liberty of individuals. In order to do this, however, police rely on the underlying cultural values and norms of the communities in which they function. Police interact with the public in order to ascertain those that are committing offenses and present these individuals to the criminal justice system for sentencing of ...

Question 3

Some individuals and organizations argue that prisons should be abolished because most people who are locked are poor ethnic minorities. Furthermore, they suggest that the prison system does not help in rehabilitating criminals (Edge 43). Many people who are accused of committing various crimes and end up being incarcerated are often unable to hire good lawyers to represent them in court. Imprisonment results in the restrictions of a person’s liberty. Inmates also suffer physical, sexual, and psychological abuse while serving time in prisons. However, unless better alternatives to the prison system are established, prisons should not be abolished ...

Policy making processes can be long and arduous. Nevertheless, they play a very important role in determining the way a country should be governed (Anderson, 2015). One of the issues that needs urgent attention from public officials is the crowding in correction facilities. A correction institution is a place where people who have been convicted of crime are kept and housed in an environment of limited freedom. The amount of time one spends in prison depends on a number of issues and the nature of crime committed. Convicted felons are transferred to places that suited to hold them according ...

Insanity defense, as it is known in many jurisdictions refers to the assertion by a person accused of criminal prosecution that at the time of committing the criminal act(s) they were not in the right state of mind as to appreciate the wrongfulness of their acts. Insanity has been invoked in many jurisdictions to reverse legal decisions or acquit people accused of crimes and it comes forth as the perfect defense. Whenever it is applied, it permits a person who is factually guilty to escape punishment and incarceration. Canadian laws have numerous circumstances exempt individuals from criminal responsibility ...

Literature Review

The paper reviews the existing literature on the efficacy of incarcerating criminals in prisons and the associated expenses that the government incurs to jail them and maintain the prisons. According to Gilgan (2015), the expenses, which are substantial, are funded by the taxes collected from the citizens. His opinion is that a prison sentence for every criminal is neither rational nor an economically viable solution for the U.S. Government. The crucial question that the paper will explore is whether using tax dollars to imprison criminals is the ideal way to utilize the money gathered, and how might they be ...

Juvenile and adult systems differ in many ways. For instance, juveniles are tried for delinquent acts, while it is only very serious cases that lead to a case being referred to as the adult justice system. Secondly, they do not have a jury in their trials. In contrast, they have a judge hearing the evidence and ruling if the child is errant (Clarke, 2015). What’s more, when they are deemed to be juveniles, the goal is to rehabilitate, rather than punish as it is in the adult justice system. This is proof that juveniles are not adults, thus ...

International Trends in Correctional Facilities

Private correctional facilities are gaining popularity by governments in many parts of the world. A private correctional facility (prison, detention or jail) refers to a place where individuals are physically in facilities provided by a third party or a private entity through contractual agreements with the local or national government. The government pays the private entity a monthly rate or per diem per prisoner. Privatization may also refer to take over of existing public correctional or the building of new facilities by private entities. Privatization dates back to the days of the American Revolution whereby Great Britain, US colonizers, ...

Introduction

Alternative sentencing makes way for committers of minor crimes and those with no criminal records to transform and comply with varied ethical standards as laid out by the state. With enhanced supervision as an alternative to incarceration, court administrators are involved in monitoring activities such as substance abuse treatment, random drug testing and community services performed by the offenders. The probation officers have to work closely with the Office of Community Corrections to ensure that the benchmarks set by the judges are met and that the offenders are able to contribute to long term growth and stability of the ...

Alexander argues that black Americans who face mass incarceration through the war on drugs do not feel the gains of the civil rights movement. She equates this to the new Jim Crow era since the old Jim Crow era is long gone even if its principles live on. The old Jim Crow laws placed the African American in subordinate status, which manifests in modern day justice system (Alexander, 2010 p.21). She uses this analogy to analyze various issues facing African Americans and proves that racial segregation and class segmentation exists. This paper focuses on analyzing her argument and placing ...

The Gender Discrimination in Criminal Justice System

Introduction Traditionally, women have not been viewed as criminals because of their less aggressive nature, making the act of crime to be mainly associated with the male gender. There are several theories brought forth to explain why the female gender would, or would not engage in crime. The theories, however, do not provide satisfactory explanations to the phenomenon leading to counterarguments. Also, the criminal justice of the United States of America has been viewed as discriminatory because it fails to address the gender needs of female offenders whose number has increased over time. This essay discusses the historical perspectives, ...

Legalization of drugs is a topic that continues to be hotly debated as a possible solution to reduce crime and save tax payer dollars that are tied up in drug enforcement agencies. Drugs related crime is one of the most expensive obstacles facing the United States citizens; from the perspective of those who are involved in drug use and sales, to the tax payers whose money is allocated to the agencies that exist to deal with all drug-related criminal offenses. A possible solution to curtail the social and financial problems that exist as a result of drug sales, use, ...

The primary role of a district attorney in regards to community corrections is in whether or not it is will be part of a plea bargain agreement or, in the alternative, a sentence recommendation. For instance, a district attorney may agree to community correction provision in a plea bargain agreement, if the alleged criminal act was not serious or when the more effective action to resolving the case does not require incarceration. In such a circumstance, the district attorney could either recommend community corrections own their own volition or agree to a suggestion provided by defense counsel. Even in ...

Mental Illness Among Criminals

The prison systems have been over populated by many criminals in our country. The increasing rate of prisoners who have been diagnosed with mental illness is increasing. Many criminals have either been diagnosed with mental illness before being arrested and put into prison or they were diagnosed with mental issues after being incarcerated. The inmates with mental illness while committing crimes may have done so because of their illness. The people who were incarcerated and then diagnosed could have had mental problems because of the prisons system they are now living in. It can cause inmates to become depressed, ...

Criminal Justice Setting: Federal Corrections

Role: Social Worker providing Case Management Services Of the 114 federal prisons existing today, 27 are for females. The average age of the female inmate is 28. 66% of female inmates are white. 18% of female inmates are not citizens of the United States. 28% of female inmates are Latino, and 29% are black. Women in prison serve an average of 78 months. There are currently 13,033 female inmates in federal prison and they include 6.7 % of the federal prison population. Most of these women in federal prison are poor, single mothers who are undereducated and unskilled. Every ...

This study aims to identify reasons for growth in female prison population in China and propose possible solution to the problem. One of the difficulties of this study is that little research and data is available on China’s women in prisons.

Ill

Female offenders constitute a small fraction of total number of people in China, however this number is dramatically increasing which is alarming and cannot be negotiated. According to the statistics provided by Institute for Criminal Policy Research, the percentile of female population in prisons significantly increased over last years ("China | World Prison Brief", 2016). Number of women ...

The death penalty remains a most controversial topic not only in the ‘US but the rest of the world for many years now. It was in 1622 that the first execution took place in the United States in Virginia for a criminal in the American colonies as stated by Marcus (838). Many oppose while several others support the death penalty. What adds to the debatable issue are the process, mistakes, and costs involved. The last execution in the US took place in 2015. The paper considers all those issues related to the death penalty and if it is the ...

With the issue of crime, the levels of criminal recidivism and high rates of incarceration becoming more and a more serious, there has been a need to find ways of reducing the emphasis on punishment within the US criminal justice system. One of the ways through which this objective can be achieved has been found after years of studies and research to lie in rehabilitation as an alternative mechanism for dealing with criminal offenders within the justice system. Thus, there have been calls to integrate rehabilitation and punishment as a parallel strategy of controlling crime and recidivism.

The Theoretical Perspectives of Rehabilitation Strategies

The main ...

Introduction

Violence within prison complexes is common in almost all parts of the world. The violence can originate from staff or inmate. The correctional systems in several countries attempted newer approaches to incarceration in order to avoid violence on prison complexes. There are very few complexes in the world that have reduced rates of violence or can claim to be violence free. Instead of rehabilitation, prisoners face entrapment in a dangerous game. The level of accountability towards prisoners and their safety diminishes in regions such as Asia, Middle East, and South America. The United Nations established a set of international ...

For the past two decades, the number of inmates in American prisons has been rising steadily eliciting concerns amongst leaders and the public. New York, in particular, is viewed as the hub of most violent activities in the United States. The prisons in the city are filled with so many inmates some of whom committed petty thefts such as not responding to a warrant or failing to pay debts. The petty criminals are placed with the violent prisoners who have committed rape and murders. The panelists in the CUNY Forum discuss the alarming rates of inmates in the rehabilitation ...

One of the points we take pride in as Americans is being the land of the free. While we like to hold this idea up as a reason we are a great country, we currently house over 20% of the world’s prison population, while only having 5% of the world’s population according to the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) web site. This means that 1 out of every 110 adults is currently incarcerated. Between the years of 1978 and 2014 the prison population has risen a staggering 408%, and will most likely continue to grow. These numbers ...

The

ABSTRACT The underage offenders can not be treated as adult criminals. Children have more chances to change. A special court system for juveniles has created a service-delivery system that provides minors with education, guidance, and supervision. The courts for juveniles also differ from the ones for adults. Commonly, the juvenile courts are informal in order not to stress the child, but minors has still have less rights in the court than adults. Also children can be punished for the cases that are absolutely legal for adults, like possession of alcohol and tobacco and running away from home. Minors are ...

Introduction

The number of mentally ill offenders in American jails continues to grow every year. The Bureau of Justice estimates that approximately 16% of incarcerated persons have been diagnosed with active symptoms of severe mental illness, and about 75% of these people have related drugs and alcohol use disorder ("Mental Health and Criminal Justice", 2000). The presence of mentally ill defendants in the criminal justice system has significant costs on the system and harm on these defendants. It is almost impossible to care for these prison populations; thus, the mental health courts system advocates for the removal of mentally ill ...

Probation and parole are alternative sentences to incarceration, which offer convicted offenders the opportunity to remain in the community, but operate under supervision (Hanser 12). Whereas probation takes place before and often instead of imprisonment, parole usually occurs as an early prison release. The convicted offender is required to comply with probation and parole conditions. The offenders are subjected to warrantless searches without any reasonable cause. In the United States, over 2,000 agencies administer probation on offenders who commit felonies as well as misdemeanors. Adult probation as well as parole are established in executive branches of state government ...

The Fair Sentencing Act

On August 3, 2010, President Barack Obama signed into law the Fair Sentencing Act of 2010, for the first time in the History of the U.S (Grindle, 2010). This law was a response to the then claims of racial biases of the law in convicting drug dealers. This Act established new quantity thresholds, which were meant to trigger statutory mandatory minimum and maximum penalties for offenses related to cocaine. By so doing, this law amended the Controlled Substance Act and the controlled import and export of substance. This new law saw to it that the quantities of cocaine that ...