Alec Gorbell

ENC2135

Whitney Gilchrist

The United States prison system is one that is crumbling and leaving

thousands of people behind. Currently in the United States over 2 million

people are behind bars, this is more then any other country in the world.

With the US being a global powerhouse and a country many other countries

look up to this is not a good statistic to represent the US. Many of the

individuals behind bars will spend the rest of their lives behind bars as many

of them should, but others are or have spent too much of their life serving

time not only in prison, but after in the real world as well. The prison system

in this country is one that focuses much to heavily on the punishment and

dehumanization of criminals, rather then the rehabilitation and improvement

of these incarcerated individuals. As the US continues to move people into

jails and very few out there is a continuous trend of jails becoming

overcrowded. This overcrowding is not only making things harder for inmates

and prison workers but for all the people of the United States. With an

economy in a great deal of debt as it is adding to the debt and continuing to

carry a cinderblock of fees that keep prisons functional is not helping

anyone. Through careful law making decisions, a changed perspective from

government officials, rehabilitation of inmates and a changed pre-conserved

notion of inmates after release the countries penal system can one day be

effective and used for the purpose of an improved society.

Prison overcrowding is becoming a problem throughout the country,

with the largest prison system in the world comes a lot of baggage. Prisons

around the country are bursting at the seams constantly having a revolving

door, one inmate out the next one is coming in right behind them. These

prisons arent being built to make room for prisoners theyre being built to be

filled with prisoners. For many many years now the US prison systems have

been over crowded the solution, build more. As state and local governments

realize the extensive amounts of money being sucked up by the prisons

government officials realize that this can no longer be the solution. Since

legislation is running out of room to put convicted criminals they must either

find alternatives or pick and choose who deserves jail time and how much

with a little more detail. According to the Legislative Analysts Office of

California to incarcerate a single individual for a year costs about $71,000.

This is an insane amount of money to be wasted for someone to sit behind

bars. These are funds that could be spent in schools or public facilities that

are being thrown away so someone can survive in a jail and spend most of

their days sitting in a cell. Every prisoner in the United States has access to

healthcare free of charge all from government money, not even every person

in the country ha health care and those who do are paying for it. Adding

individuals to jails is not only making them more crowded but also taking

away $70,000 from something or someone that needs it.

 The number one people the failing prison system is hurting is inmates.

Although, many might argue that inmates are criminals who dont deserve

help, but instead punishment, this is not the way jail should be looked at.

Jails and prisons should not be seen as places for people to rot and think

about what theyve done it should be a place where people can learn from

their mistakes and turn this into a positive. Instead of criminals being treated

like animals only getting let out of their cage to go outside for a little bit

these people should be getting help. The revolving door idea not only works

for all inmates but individual inmates as well, the bureau of Justice statistics

conducted a study in which they found the following During the five years

after release, prisoners in the study were arrested about 1.2 million times

across the country. A sixth (16 percent) of released prisoners were

responsible for nearly half (48 percent) of the arrests. About two in five (42

percent) released prisoners were either not arrested or were arrested no

more than once in the five years after release. This is a prime example of

once someone goes to jail once the odds of them coming back are

substantial. It is clear that prisons are not doing the job intended and that is

to punish someone so that they dont want to go back. It seems almost if

prisons are doing opposite of whats intended. In todays society felons

struggle to be accepted back into society after release, it is hard for them to

get jobs, loans, a house, the path after prison for many is to get back into

their old ways and get involved with the same people that ended them in jail
in the first place. Even for some who wanted to get out of that lifestyle may

get forced back into it to make easy money or because it is the only source

of income they can find. The prison system can be seen as a very low end

hotel on the vacation away from your normal life for many of the inmates.

Once they finish their vacation it is back to how life used to be. This is

where prisons are failing inmates, while in jail time is wasted many are

counting the days, hours and minutes until their release. Instead of wasting

this time prisoner should be getting rehabilitation and learning job skills that

will allow a transition back into society a little bit easier and help the

incarceration rate drop. In an article De Giorgi talks about his views on the

way things need to be changed

such an acknowledgment would amount to a call for massive public spending in public

services and social programsthe only way to begin to address the social harms

produced by the carceral state across the most disadvantaged regions of the American

social space. Instead, those arguments are fully compatible withand indeed 10

Alessandro De Giorgi are often complemented bypolicy reform initiatives that

emphasize personal responsibility and the provision of second chances for deserving

individuals, postrelease programs aimed at shoring up labor market competition, and

rehabilitation models purporting to address endemic social problems by making some

individuals more employable. (Giorgi)

If convicts were able to get back into society and become a law abiding

citizen, then not only are they benefiting but so is the economy. Instead of
this ex-con going back to old ways committing more crimes and ending up

back in jail they can work, purchase a home, and pay taxes instead of

absorbing tax money. Throwing people in jail to punish them is not the way

to improvement, but instead the root to some of the major issues involved

with the US prison system.

The development of alternatives is in the works but isnt producing

enough interest or results. One idea for reducing number of inmate as well as

ones that are reconvicted is One major way to reduce recidivism and increase cost

savings is through reentry-oriented reform, i.e., instituting pre-release readiness [programs],

reintegration training, job preparedness[,] . . . discharge planning and other like programming to

prepare individuals leaving prison to reenter the community.

Reform of the prison system is needed and change is necessary. The

system is failing the the inmates as well as society. The system, rules and

ideas need to adapt, people need to get rid of the notion that the sole

purpose of jail is to punish and put away. Out of sight and out of mind is not

the way to handle people, improvements should be made to rehabilitate

inmates and prepare them for their entrance back into society. As change is

made the movement and trends of prison overcrowding and reincarceration

will reduce. An effort from legislation to change laws and ideas of governing

officials is one that needs and will be made in order to improve a very

ineffective way of serving justice.

 Works Cited

Feeley, Malcolm M. "The Unconvincing Case against Private Prisons." Indiana

Law Journal, vol. 89, no. 4, Fall2014, pp. 1401-1436. EBSCOhost,
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direct=true&db=a9h&AN=96565114&site=ehost-live.

Obama, Barack. "The Presidents Role in Advancing Criminal Justice

Reform." Harvard Law Review, vol. 130, no. 3, Jan. 2017, pp. 812-866.
EBSCOhost, search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?
direct=true&db=a9h&AN=120651484&site=ehost-live.

Devonis, David C. and Jessica Triggs. "Prison Break: Karl Menninger's the
Crime of Punishment and Its Reception in U.S. Psychology." History of
Psychology, vol. 20, no. 1, Feb. 2017, pp. 92-121. EBSCOhost,
doi:10.1037/hop0000051.
Benson, Sara M. "A Political Science of Punishment: Francis Lieber and the
Discipline of American Prisons." New Political Science, vol. 37, no. 3, Sept.
2015, pp. 382-400. EBSCOhost, doi:10.1080/07393148.2015.1056432.

Statistics, Bureau Of Justice. "3 IN 4 FORMER PRISONERS IN 30 STATES

ARRESTED WITHIN 5 YEARS OF RELEASE." Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS).
N.p., n.d. Web. 24 Feb. 2017.

De Giorgi, Alessandro. "Five Theses on Mass Incarceration." Social Justice, vol. 42, no. 2, 05 Dec. 2015, pp. 5-30.
EBSCOhost, search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=a9h&AN=115259489&site=ehost-live.

Reginald A. Wilkinson et al., Prison Reform Through Offender Reentry: A Partnership between
Courts and Corrections, 24 PACE L. Rev. 609, 611 (2004).

KIRAGES, DREW. "Reentry Reform in Indiana: Hea 1006 and Its (Much Too Narrow) Focus on Prison
Overcrowding." Indiana Law Review, vol. 49, no. 1, Dec. 2015, pp. 209-239. EBSCOhost,
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