Prisons In The Us And Possible Reforms
Essay Preview: Prisons In The Us And Possible Reforms
Report this essay
According to the FBI crime reports and worlds crime statistics the United States has the highest rate of violent crime in the world. What causes this violence? You don’t need to think a lot to answer this question, it will be enough to open your eyes and look.
Everything is going back to history. This country was built with guns and violence.
The right of carrying guns plays a very big role. Maybe at the time the Constitution was written it was necessary to have guns, but today is the 21st century and it just causes more violence.
The way children are raised. It’s incredible how much kids receive from the media. But today media shows a lot of violence and it’s definitely an influence on children. The other thing is that kids are taught that males are violent and females are not.
Alcohol and drugs
Child abuse
And I think that this one is the most important. It’s the prison system.
Let’s look at the juvenile prison system. We understand that if a teenager is not put on the right way, he will not be successful and the risk that he or she will be unsociable is really high. The importance of correction juvenile system is very big. Because every state in has its own laws and judicial system, each is slightly different in how it runs its own juvenile justice system. Which is good and bad? Let’s look at some examples.
California Youth Authority, is suposed to provide education, training, and treatment services for Californias most serious youth offenders. These youths are committed by the juvenile and criminal courts to division of juvinile juctices eleven correctional facilities, four conservation camps and two residential drug treatment programs, operated by the newly formed California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation. The CYA is legally required to provide a high school education for every ward who does not already have a diploma. However, students are routinely kept out of class because of security lockdowns, teacher vacancies or other problems. Gang members have been reportedly kept from regular classes for several months at a time because of gang tensions. Teachers are often frustrated and become burnt out coping with systemic barriers to providing educational programs. Some wear body armor to class. On non-school days, maximum security inmates are locked in their cells for 23 hours a day. A spokesman for Governor Arnold Schwarzeneggers prisons department said lengthy lockdowns at DJJ facilities were no longer used as punishment, but were sometimes necessary to maintain order. One of the justifications for such treatment is gang affiliation and the threat of corresponding violence. Simply saying it doesn’t work, but it cost about $80,000 a year to keep a kid there and three quarters are rearrested.
The other example is Missouri’s youth prisons. They believe in “small is beautiful” theory and use the “rehabilitate” philosophy. The size of their youth prisons are small. There are no handcuffs, no razor-wire fences, no uniforms, no cells. Stuff has a college degrees. Personilized relationship between councelors and kids, concentration on education, Providing of therapy, guidence and after care, friendly environment is what they have. Kids involved in activities and work.. This system gives them love and care they were lacking of and it works. The recedivism rate is unbelievebly small compared to other states. In 2003 it was about 8 %. While it’s about 80% in California. The most important thing is that it cost about $43,000 to keep teenager in Missouri prison. It does work, cost much less than others.
It’s a good thing to rehabilitate young people, but what kind of adult prisons does the USA have. We see that most of them are big size, 1000-3000 people, and they are overcrowded. The facilities are very bad. It’s all mixed and massed up. I mean that in prisons for non-violent crimes there are a lot of mentaly ill and 85% have drug and alcohol abuse, who need very special care, but not to be just locked up. But there is a problem with all prisons. Pretty much we can say that there is no controll. People are wasting their time in jails, sitting just doing nothing. They watch TV, play basketball and do weight lifting. Prisons are supposed to be correction facilities, but they became academy of crime. The prison murder rate is high. Millions of dollars from the pockets of tax-payers are spent to keep those people in jails, but statistic shows that it doesn’t help to improve anything. It making the situation even worse, because those people are getting out on the streets again and nobody knows how he or she will act. There is no after care and control. After prisoners are getting out, they are on their own with 200$. It’s obvious why they are going back to jail. But what people can do?
More than 50% of prisoners are locked up for committing violent crimes. But let’s take a look on non-violent prisoners. For this people my philosophy will be punishment and rehabilitation. In my opinion this people need help and support to get on the right way, because most of them were raised in wrong way. First thing they should do is work. Work should be provided by prisons. It will keep them busy, because we are facing