Prison reforms in many developed countries began in the 18th century due to the increased awareness of human rights and increased civilization. In the United States, the punishment for first-time offenders involved being fined for crimes committed or being put in concentration facilities for a given period. Second-timeoffenders would be penalized by being put into the gallows with ropes around their necks without an actual hanging taking place. Thiswas expected to act as a warning of the consequences that would result if the criminals continued acting contrary to the law. Third-timeoffenders, especially those convicted of a serious crime should be hanged. The precarious consequences of crime were believed to deter a prospective criminal from offending.
In the 21stcentury, the nature of crime has changed due to the copious laws developed by both the state and the federal government. The rather rigid criminal justice system has resulted in a big population being incarcerated. The increased cost of maintaining prisons and the high and the effects on minority groups has reignited the debate (Suede, 2016). Although there has been antagonism from different stakeholders regarding the implementation of prison reforms, it is clear that the current system is ineffective in deterring crime and it only burdens the taxpayers and robs the economy of productive people. Prison reform should be a primary objective of stakeholders in the criminal justice system due to the costly prison operations, increased recidivism, and the effect of victimless crimes among the minority groups.
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First, statistics indicate that most of the criminals in the prisons have been incarcerated for victimless crimes. Therefore, when charged in court, the states or the country act as the complainant (Suede, 2016). Most of these crimes do not have detrimental consequences on victims, and they can only affect the offender. For instance, drinking in non-designated places, taking drugs, attempted suicide, dancing in public among others, do not have dire consequences for the victims.
Therefore, criminally charged for such crime should not be incarcerated long periods. The current prison system mixes such offenders with intransigent criminals who have been chargedwith dire crimes felonies including murder, homicide, drug trafficking, robbery with violence, extortion, and rape among other others. The nature of the crimes points out to a serious shortcoming in the current correctional system (Enns, 2014). Research also indicates that individuals who are imprisoned for less serious crimes become hardboiled and they are likely to commit more detrimental crimes after being released from prison.
It is noteworthy that more than 50.7% of the population the American prisons havebeen put in the facilities for victimless crimes (Suede, 2016). It beats logic to incarcerate them for less serious crimes only for them to become honed criminals after being released from prison. Thiscontradicts the purpose of the facilities since instead of changing behavior; they have turned out to be crime-honing facilities (Suede, 2016). Reforms are necessary and almost inevitable in the country wants to revert the levels and intensity of crimes in the society. Establishing fair punishment for the fellows who have committed victimless crimes would assure that they go back to their occupations and support the economy rather than spending months behind bars only to become worse than they were before being incarcerated. For example, in the United States, the police arrest an individual in possession of bhang in every 51 seconds (Suede, 2016). In 2013, this translated to 613,000 individuals.
Interesting, according to Clear & Frost (2015), only 5.5% of these offenders were associated with the manufacturing and sale of the drug. The rest were chargedwith passion with the intention of consumption. With such a high number of petty offenders, it would be unfair to burden the tax payers with their imprisonment through the mainstreamed process. For instance, those found drunk and disorderly should be fined while those found in possession of drugs should be recommended to rehabilitative and corrective facilities than putting them together with seasoned criminals. The rehabilitation of criminals convicted of serious crimes and those put behind bars for relatively petty offences is ineffective when served on the same platter.
Secondly, prison reforms are necessary due to the magnified cost maintaining the high population in the prisons. In the country, it is estimated that 1 in every 42 citizens is under the form of parole or correctional supervision (Clear & Frost, 2015). Of these 2,220,300 are in the federal and state prisons and county jails. This number is the highest across the globe. National Research Council (2014) also indicates that it cost about $47,102 per year to meet the needs of a single prisoner. In 2016, the taxpayers incurred $39.4 billion in prison expenditures (National Research Council, 2014). This figure is due to the high number of prisoners and the extend time that they spend in prisons. As a result of the rigid system, felons with victimless crimes are subjected to the same treatment with the precarious offenders. Therefore, the stringency of the system leads to more costs than benefits since most of them could have been released back to their occupations if the system was effective and efficient in the use of resources.
In addition to the increased expenditures in the federal, state, and county jails, the issue of prison industrial complex has also been a factor in the soaring of the cost of imprisonment. Due to the overwhelming number of people being charged for various wrongdoings, some of the government facilities have been under pressure, and this has instigated the stakeholders to seek the intervention of private investors in establishing prisons. This has been criticized as a method to ensure that the number of felons continues soaring from the business to bloom. This affects not only the objectives of the department but also the confidence that the citizens have on the system.
According to Kearney et al. (2015), the value of the correctional services offered to the inmate with the objective of behavior change is gradually shifting towards making money and ensuring that the prisoners are artsy in the facilities for a maximum time, particularly in the private prisons. Without reforms that capitalize on the quality of services to deter future crimes, there is no precedent to scale down the rate of crime in the country. Major changes in the objectives of correction facilities would be instrumental in establishing the most effective internal structures that have long-term effects. For instance, criminals who have committed different offences should be subjected to varied correctional and punitive measures rather than providing ineffective umbrella services. The rationale for this is that their motivation to commit a crime is different. While some may be habitual criminals, other may have been forced by circumstances in their environment.
Another justification for the implementation of reforms in the prisons regards the huge percentage of the minorities who are put in the correctional facilities. The number African-Americans being charged in court is comparatively higher than that of the native Whites. This has resulted in the disparagement of the justice department with some people believing that the law has been set unfairly to disadvantage the minority groups. As indicated by Reiman & Leighton (2015), more than half of the population in the correctional facilities has been found guilty of victimless crimes. A significant number of them are committed by first-time offenders. As a result factors in their environment that makes them vulnerable to crime. It is a fact that the more African American and Hispanics than the natives live below the national poverty index.
According to the Poverty Center, 26.6 percent of the African Americans live below the poverty national poverty index. In addition, 30.6 percent of the Hispanics live below the poverty index (Reiman & Leighton, 2015). Interestingly, these minority groups have the highest percentage of individuals being incarcerated. Information from the Department of Justice indicates that 1 in every 15 of the Black men and 1 in 36 Hispanic men are in prison (Reiman & Leighton, 2015). However, as the authors note, it is worth noting that 86% of this population has been convicted of victimless crimes. Since a significant number of them live in economically disenfranchised neighborhoods, they are vulnerable to petty crimes, and they usually find themselves at loggerheads with the law. Therefore, as Sudbury (2014) notes, without reform, the social factors that are pertinent in the neighborhoods that the minorities live in would not be addressed. Reforms in the prison system would focus on less punitive measures for first-time offenders. For instance, since most of the minorities are arrested for drug-related cases, those who do not have the intention of manufacturing or trafficking should be handed lighter punishments that may not necessarily involve being put behind bars.
In addition, individuals from the minority groups are more likely to re-offend after being released. This is associated with their susceptibility to crime as a result of the crime that is pertinent in their backyards. Therefore, the burden of recidivism is more intense among the minority groups. Since the current prison system is not considerate on such factors, there is the need for reforms that not only concentrates on the punitive aspect but on deterring crime. The rationale for this is that the effectiveness of the prison system and the entire judicial system would shift from being measured by the number of people who have gone through the correction system to the reducing crime rates, particularly for the re-offenders (Suede, 2016). This would also change the attitude that the minorities have towards the prison system.
The high rate of recidivism in the country is also an indication that there is a need for reforms in the prisons. The objective of the correctional system throughout the country is to oversee the incarceration of individuals and handle all the aspects of state executions. This is meant to deter crime and reduce the number of people being rearrested after going through the system. However, this has not been the case with the current rates of recidivism in the country. Statistics from the Department of Justice indicates that about 65% of the youth ex-prisoners are rearrested within three years of being discharged from the facilities (Suede, 2016).The colossal percentage is enough to doubt the effectiveness of the current system. With the rising cases of crime and imprisonment, there is a possibility of having a vicious cycle of incarceration in the country. This would not only be expensive and unsustainable since a significant number of the active workforce would be in and out of jail and this would have injurious effects on the economy of the country.
According to the United States Sentencing Commission, which is an independent body serving under the judiciary, of all the prisoners released in 2005, half of them had been re-arrested within eight years for new offences of violating the terms of their parole. Among them, 31.75 had been re-convicted and re-incarcerated. Interestingly, the re-arrests rates for those who had been convicted were higher than for those who had undergone through parole (Reiman & Leighton, 2015). The report indicates that 52.5% of the ex-prisoners re-arrested during the year had been previously convicted while 35.1% were under parole (Suede, 2016).
This is an indication that the prison system leads to more people becoming habitual criminals than what would have been expected. It is likely to boil down to the weak structures in the prison department. It is also an indication of the poor rehabilitative practices in the facilities that does not lead to any behavior change. Contrary to popular belief that massive incarceration can deter crime due to the fear of people incarcerated, the case has not been experienced in the United States. This calls for reforms that delve into the rehabilitation methods and the objective of the entire prison system across the states.
In conclusion, the available research is clear that there is a dire need for reforms in the prison system due to the increased number of people incarcerated for victimless felonies, the inflated expenditure, high rates of recidivism and the high number of minorities being imprisoned. The objective of the prison department is to punish and rehabilitate individuals convicted of different crimes. The effectiveness of the system can be evaluated through the rate of deterring crime and the recidivism cases. However, the high number of rearrested criminals in the United States questions the mandate of the criminal justice system. In addition, the taxpayers continue incurring a consistently soaring expenditure to maintain the high number of prisoners. The big number of productive individuals behind bars also robs the country of a productive workforce that could be instrumental in driving economic growth. Therefore, to deter crime in the country and to chive the objective of the justice department, major reforms are necessary. The contemporary system should focus on rehabilitation of the felons depending on their specific crimes rather than use a blanket approach to their behavioral needs. Finally, it should look into the plight of the minority groups. Since most of the Blacks and Hispanics are convictedof victimless crimes, the punitive measures for such crime should be fair and less inclined towards imprisonment since the offenders leave the facilities more hardened and crime-oriented. Reforms are, therefore, inevitable if the country wants to revert the rising trends of imprisonment and crime.
References
Clear, T. R., & Frost, N. A. (2015). The punishment imperative: The rise and failure of mass incarceration in America . NYU Press.
Enns, P. K. (2014). The public's increasing punitiveness and its influence on mass incarceration in the United States. American Journal of Political Science , 58 (4), 857-872.
Enns, P. K. (2014). The public's increasing punitiveness and its influence on mass incarceration in the United States. American Journal of Political Science , 58 (4), 857-872.
Kearney, M. S., Harris, B. H., Jácome, E., & Parker, L. (2014). Ten economic facts about crime and incarceration in the United States. The Hamilton Project .
National Research Council. (2014). The growth of incarceration in the United States: Exploring causes and consequences . National Academies Press.
Reiman, J., & Leighton, P. (2015). The rich get richer and the poor get prison: Ideology, class, and criminal justice . New York, N.Y.: Routledge.
Sudbury, J. (2014). Global lockdown: Race, gender, and the prison-industrial complex . New York, N.Y.: Routledge.
Suede, M. (2016). Why We Need Prison Reform: Victimless Crimes Are 86% of the Federal Prison Population. Retrieved from https://mic.com/articles/8558/why-we-need-prison-reform-victimless-crimes-are-86-of-the-federal-prison-population#.MECUP80ZC
