The study addresses the problem of congestion and high rates of incarceration cases in the United States. The US does not use one criminal justice system but rather many alike systems in the country. The most mainly used system is the federal and state systems. The state criminal justice system has jurisdiction within the state boundaries while the federal justice system has its jurisdiction in more than one state and on all crimes committed on federal property. Since the stability of the country in the 1920s to 1970s, the growth of incarcerations and congestion in the US has increased rapidly (Western et al., 2014). Most of these incarcerations are from the disadvantage section of the population in the country. They are mostly uneducated and of poor background. The population in the incarceration facilities are of the minority and men under the age of 40 years ( Wang et al., 2016) . The budget strain created by the high inmate numbers has been felt in both levels of government due to the rise in the incarceration rates. The criminal justice system has experienced various challenges since its formulation. The analysis in this paper seeks to identify these challenges and impacts of the current justice system. Issues such as the rising rate of incarcerations and the effect it has on the financial aspect of maintaining the system will be discussed in the analytic paper. Most of the incarcerated criminals are behind bars due to rational choices which make their incarceration not a suitable way to correct these individuals. In criminology, there are various theories that explain how an individual arrives at an outcome. One of these theories is the rational choice theory. The theory states that before a person makes a choice, he or she applies rational calculations which lead to the rational outcome resulting from a choice reached before ( Clarke & Cornish, 2013) . There are factors that are related to these rational choices by an individual which play a key role in the decision making of the individual. They are the person’s self-interests, constraints, and beliefs. Rational choice theory gives an individual certain expectation that the outcome will be of great advantage and satisfaction to him/her out of all options he/she had on the table. The theory is mainly applied under the assumption of any engagements from rational actors. The theory usually adopts a concept that individuals are reasoning actors who analyze various factors before reaching a particular choice. They weigh the advantages and costs of a decision before making a criminal decision ( Dietrich & List, 2013 ). The rational choice theory states that most crimes are calculated and intentional. The offenders in this case the criminals are rational actors who assess their decisions before doing them. They commit offenses with the intention of achieving benefits for their self-interests in the situation at hand. Many of them experience limited rationality and have issues in generating alternative decisions instead of the ones they took which had an outcome of a criminal offense. Furthermore, most of the rational decisions taken by offenders are a result of limited information which leads them into believing they had no other choice. As Clarke and Cornish (2013) explain, the rational choice theory attributes a crime to be an outcome of an opportunity. Some factors explaining that crime is as a result of an opportunity are cost, risks, and socioeconomic benefits. The rational choice theory lays emphasis on instrumental crimes mostly and not expressive crimes. The instrumental crimes involve more of analyzing risks and planning before actualizing an act. Such instrumental crimes are sexual assault, tax evasion, traffic noncompliance among many others. On the other hand, expressive crimes can only be determined by establishing the instrumental crime first. Therefore, the rational choice theory can be used in determining the actual motive of criminal cases and find a suitable corrective measure to correct the individual rather than placing a collective punishment for all offenders. The analysis seeks to raise and recommend policies necessary to reduce the rate of incarcerations in the country. The policies if adopted will lead to a reduction of the population in the incarceration facilities and therefore save the government finances. First, the elimination of prisons for lower-level crimes in the country is a critical action (Cullen, 2016). Criminalizing lower-level crimes to prison sentences is not a suitable policy by the government. ( Dietrich & List, 2013 ). The imprisonment of such offenders builds a worse perception for the offenders and exposes them to more bad scenarios while in prison. Alternatives mode of punishment for such offenders such as probation should be put in place by both the senate and the congress. Such alternatives are ten times less expensive than imprisoning such individuals ( Karn, 2013) . Such crimes that suit this recommendation are petty theft, drug possession among others.
Second, reduction of sentencing durations both maximum and minimum durations’ would help solve the problem. Researchers have found it hard proving that the longer a criminal stays in prison the more likely reformed they will be. In fact, the longer they stay in prison the more likely the increased recidivism. Thus policies that focus on the correctional aspect and rehabilitation of these criminals should be put in place (James, 2016). By doing so and minimizing the prison sentences of these criminals, they will integrate easily into society after confirmation of their rehabilitation and reduce the high population in these incarceration facilities. If these recommendations are adopted by both the federal and state governments they will play a key role in reducing incarceration rates and their high population. In criminology, the theory comes with various shortcomings and weaknesses in their application in determining crimes. The shortcomings may lead to inaccurate analysis in some cases. Problems relating to uncertainty and inadequate data at an individual’s disposal is one of the shortcomings. A person may lack adequate information to make a rational choice and may opt for another way of effecting a decision instead of a rational way. Therefore, the rational way does not account for situations where an individual may consider other options. In addition, individual social life and actions are complex. The theory is not extensive to cater for these aspects of an individual and other theories may have more dynamism. Rational choice theory assumes every decision by individuals to be rational. However believable this may seem, the truth is that not all individuals’ decision is rational. Expanding this to all individuals, is a major weakness in the theory and this assumption is limited in scope. Also, norms and habits are a major influence in the decision making of individuals and can influence the practice of individuals. The above are the shortcomings and weakness which should be considered in the analysis.
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Conclusion
Incarceration has helped in reducing crime rate in the country in recent times. This has however come at a high expense in increased populations in correctional facilities all over the country. Due to this problem, both governments have had to increase the budget allocation to these facilities which are strenuous on the government and taxpayers. The senate and congress ought to step in and facilitate adoption of the aforementioned policy recommendations to control the numbers that are growing daily thereby becoming a burden to the entire nation. When implemented the country will reduce these inmate numbers significantly and create a mode of managing them adequately.
References
Bruce Western, Jeremy Travis., (2014). Exploring Courses and Consequences. The Growth of Incarcerations in the United States : Washington DC.
Clarke, R. V., & Cornish, D. B. (2013). The rational choice perspective. In Environmental criminology and crime analysis (pp. 43-69). Willan.
Dietrich, F., & List, C. (2013). A reason ‐ based theory of rational choice. Nous , 47 (1), 104-134.
James, C.E. (December 19, 2016). Four Thing We Can Do to End Mass Incarceration. ANALYSIS.
Karn, J. (2013). Policing and crime reduction: The evidence and its implications for practice . Washington DC: Police Foundation.
Wang, H., Kifer, D., Graif, C., & Li, Z. (2016, August). Crime rate inference with big data. In Proceedings of the 22nd ACM SIGKDD international conference on knowledge discovery and data mining (pp. 635-644).
