Prison facilities are meant to be correctional centers where the incarcerated can reform their behaviors under strict sentencing guidelines that make their living conditions unpleasant than usual to initiate and sustain the rehabilitation process. American prisons have been plagued by the overcrowding issue that has degraded the conditions thereof owing to the existence of strict budgetary constraints and the implemented punitive correctional philosophy.
Prison overcrowding is a result of the overuse of imprisonment punishments that has, in turn, resulted in the violation of fundamental human rights of American prisoners. Research shows that the United States is one of the countries that imprisons most people per capita, and the data collected depicts that the country’s prison system holds over 2.4 million people. Hence, America is the country with the highest number of prisoners globally (Williams, 2014). The prison system in the United States focused more on rehabilitation until the mid-70s with the prison policy implemented encouraging prisoners to resolve psychological issues and acquire functional skills that would facilitate the betterment of their re-introduction to society. The court sentences they received matched the need for the mentioned treatments. However, in following years, American prisons have decided to take a more radical approach in disciplining prisoners leading to the prioritization of punishment over rehabilitation (O'Hear & Wheelock, 2016). The result is the explosion of the prison population.
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According to the American Civil Liberties Union (2015), the prison population in the United States has increased by 700% since 1970, a rate that does not synchronize with the general population or the associated crime rates. All American states have experienced an influx in the inmate population over the recent decades to the extent that one in every ninety-nine adults in the United States is living behinds bars. The result is overcrowding of prison facilities that has led to the degradation of the quality of life of the incarcerated, primarily owing to the creation of laws that encourage draconian sentencing and parole regulations that are designed to increase the number of inmates consistently. Hence, the newly implemented policies have led to the increase in the number of individuals that are imprisoned as well as the lengths of incarceration, both of which are vital determinants of the number of inmates living in a prison facility at any given time.
Therefore, it becomes clear that the increase in the rate of incarceration in the United States over the last four decades has surpassed historical trends and become a unique international identifier. Most of the prisoners in the United States are from the disadvantaged population segments mainly comprising of men from minority groups under the age of 40, drug addicts, poorly educated individuals and those with physical and mental illnesses. Their criminal liability is justified but is lodged in economic and social disadvantages making it challenging to separate the issue of overcrowding in American prisons with societal inequality as well as the contradictions surrounding citizenship quality among ethnic and racial minorities in the United States (Travis, Western & Redburn, 2014). Hence, the issue of overcrowding in American prisons goes beyond policy implementation and into other concerns affecting American society.
The case of Brown vs. Plata addressed the issue of overcrowding in American prisons, specifically in California. In its ruling, the Supreme Court established that it was necessary for the inmate holding facility to abide by its population limits to ensure that the prisoners’ Eighth Amendment rights are not violated (Newman & Scott, 2012). The court’s decision was one that can be considered a right step in facilitating the acknowledgment and correction of the constitutional violations of inmate rights in the overcrowded prisons not only in California but also in the United States (Salin & Simposon, 2012). Overcrowding in American prisons is an issue that can no longer be avoided and must be addressed to facilitate the realization of long-term solutions that emphasize on the rehabilitative rather than the punitive role that imprisonment plays.
Theory and Research
The role that American prisons are expected to play concerning the rehabilitation of inmates has become unclear in the recent past owing to the affiliation of the incarceration system to degrade the quality of life of inmates as a result of overcrowding. The number of law offenders that are sent to American prisons has increased steadily over the last decades, and most inmates have been forced to serve a more significant part of their prison terms within the incarceration facilities. These are outcomes of the adoption of the “tough on crime” approach that both the legislature and the criminal justice system in the United States have been affiliated to, leading to the reduction in the discretion rate employed within the prison system and the heightening of a more conservative punishment perspective ("What is Causing Prison Overcrowding?", n.d.). Resultantly, prisons in the United States have become overcrowded, a factor that has only served the purpose of increasing the stressful nature of the experience of prisoners.
Moreover, control over the inmates in crowded prisons is limited, resulting in a higher rate of disciplinary cases which researchers attribute to the minimization of the square living space footage that each inmate is allowed. Additionally, prison overcrowding also results in a variety of medical issues and mental health implications, both of which further degrade the well-being of inmates (Newman & Scott, 2012). The need to correct law offenders for the crimes committed is undeniable. However, the United States prison system must be restructured to ensure that the conditions under which the inmates live do not violate their human rights or adversely affect their well-being, serving a contrary purpose than that which they were initially instituted to – the betterment of inmates.
If the current state in American prisons continues to prevail, it is likely that over the next few decades, the incarceration system in the United States will collapse. Prison overcrowding negatively impacts the ability of the management to control the activities within the facilities, a factor that may contribute to the emergence of non-compliance among the inmates. Moreover, because the prisoners’ rights are violated by the living conditions that are associated with the overcrowded states, the inmates can use the same as grounds to forcefully demand compliance resulting in high rates of unrest and tension within the facilities. Furthermore, the escalation of the prevailing conditions may limit the ability of the prison system to instill discipline among the inmates through the rehabilitative process they are expected to facilitate. The lack of management control over the heightened numbers of inmates results in increased rates of disciplinary violations, a factor that beats the purpose of imprisonment. Hence, the relevant authorities must focus on implementing measures that will curb further degradation of the living conditions in prison facilities owing to their overcrowding.
References
American Civil Liberties Union. (2015). Overcrowding and Overuse of Imprisonment in the United States. Retrieved from https://www.ohchr.org/Documents/Issues/RuleOfLaw/OverIncarceration/ACLU.pdf
Newman, W. J., & Scott, C. L. (2012). Brown v. Plata: prison overcrowding in California. Journal of the American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law Online , 40 (4), 547-552.
O'Hear, M. M., & Wheelock, D. (2016). Public Attitudes Toward Punishment, Rehabilitation, and Reform: Lessons from the Marquette Law School Poll. Federal Sentencing Reporter , 29 (1), 16-13.
Salins, L., & Simpson, S. (2012). Efforts to fix a broken system: Brown v. Plata and the prison overcrowding epidemic. Loy. U. Chi. LJ , 44 , 1153.
Travis, J., Western, B., & Redburn, F. S. (2014). The growth of incarceration in the United States: Exploring causes and consequences.
What is Causing Prison Overcrowding? Retrieved from https://www.ct.gov/opm/lib/opm/cjppd/cjresearch/recidivismstudy/whatiscausingprisonovercrowding.pdf
Williams, A. (2014). Prison overcrowding threatens public safety and state budgets. American Legislative Exchange Council , 4 (8), 14.
