Overcrowded Jails

Overcrowded Jails

Jails are overcrowded. Furthermore, jails often function as "schools for crime" in which petty lawbreakers learn to become hardened criminals. Of course, it is necessary to put violent criminals in jail in order to protect others. But society would benefit if nonviolent criminals received punishments other than jail sentences.

We can see examples of overcrowded jails all over the US and even out of the US. "California's prison system, originally designed for 100,000 inmates, currently houses 173,000 inmates and has resorted to housing approximately 17,000 inmates in temporary beds in locations like prison gymnasiums"(Sung). In December of 2006, California's state prisons' 70% overcapacity with 173,000 inmates led US District Judge Lawrence Karlton to warn that if in 6 months the situation wasn't resolved, he would order the release of prisoners before their sentences were finished. High state officials scrambled to find remedies to this problem. A $8.3 billion dollar program to construct facilities to provide 53,000 new prison and jail beds was approved as an effort to remedy the state's overcrowded prisons. There are also plans to increase rehabilitation in an attempt to reduce California's 60 percent reconviction rate. Schwarzenegger announced that convicts of nonviolent crimes were to be released before their sentence was completed in order to help relieve the state's prison system of the overcrowding problem.

California is not the only state with overcrowded jails. Philadelphia prisons are so overcrowded that they are violating inmate's constitutional rights and so need court monitoring. Judge Surrick wrote: "The conditions include the failure to provide beds and bedding, the failure to provide material for personal hygiene including soap, warm water, toothpaste, toothbrushes and shower facilities, unsanitary and unavailable toilet facilities, the failure to provide for the medical needs of detainees..." (qtd. in Hrubos).

The United States is not the only country suffering from overcrowded jails. The UK has the highest rate of imprisonment in Western Europe with over 72,000 people in prison in 2003 and the number continues to rise. In the last ten years, twenty six new prisons were built and already twenty of them are overcrowded. It is predicted that by 2010, the number of inmates will reach 110,000. Even the number of women in prison has tripled in the last decade. The amount of women prisoners has increased from 1300 to over 4000 and around 8,000 children are left motherless. The financial burden of keeping a person in prison is great. In the UK, it costs Ð'Ј37,500 to keep someone in prison for just one year. Whereas probation would cost only Ð'Ј3000 and community service Ð'Ј2000. More than 12,000 prison places have been provided since 1995 and each once costs around Ð'Ј100,000. All this and over half adult prisoners and three quarters of young offenders are reconvicted within two years of their release.

One of the many reasons of the high rate of conviction is the fact that prisons act very much like a "school for crime." In jail, offenders are in constant contact with a large amount of more experienced criminals. Spending so much time with this big group of criminals can serve to teach other offenders to be better at crime and to be bigger criminals. Also violence is a way of life in prison. The increase of violence can make even the simplest offenders learn how to be violent criminals. Reconviction rates are especially high for children with 84% of kids between the ages of 14-16 being reconvicted within two years of their release. A major reason for this is because they have learned in prison how to create more crime.

Another reason that prisons become schools for crime and in turn cause high conviction rates is the increase of violence in prison which teaches inmates to become more violent criminals. Violence is a serious problem in America’s prisons and jails. Gang violence, rape, beatings by officers and illegal and humiliating strip searches can all be found in prisons. A former warden in the Florida state prison, Ron McAndrew describes small groups of officers that work as "goon squads" to abuse prisoners. In 2006, in Los Angeles County jails, more than a thousand prisonÐ'¬ers were attacking each other in the Los Angeles County jails. California corrections Secretary Roderick Hickman told the Commission at the hearing that “Quite frankly, no one denies that violence occurs in prisons and jails in this country.” (qtd. in Gibbons and Katzenbach 2)

It might not be violence, but segregation is a form of torture that can reduce a prisoner to a violent mental state. The use of segregation is causing violence inside prisons and creating more violent criminals which is resulting in the increase of reconviction after release. To run a safe prison facility, it is required to separate dangerous or vulnerable individuals from the rest of the prison population. However, in some systems in the country, the demand for tough punishment and safety is being taken to an extreme. The idea is to have prisoners placed at safe distances from particular individuals, but what ends up happening is prisoners end up locked in their cells 23 hours a day, every day. Some of these prisoners are not a real threat to anyone or are mentally ill and they are put in high-security units and “supermax” prisons for months or even years. In some places, prisoners are totally isoÐ'¬lated and confined sometimes in constantly bright or constantly dark places with no human contact. These are cruel conditions which cause mental deterioration. These prisoners are often released directly from solitary confinement into the streets. Lawyer and prison monitor Fred Cohen states that segregation has now become a “regular part of the rhythm of prison life.” (qtd. in Gibbons and Katzenbach 4)

Segregation and violence are contributing to the making of violent criminals that will be set free on our streets and affect our lives and society. Wouldn't it be better to straighten them out through laborious community sentences and services rather than putting them in jail where they will learn more crime? Community Rehabilitations, Community Punishment Order, Electronic Monitoring, Testing Orders, Surveillance Programs and Community Payback are all alternatives to jail time.

Community Rehabilitation Order constitutes that offenders are supervised by a probation officer, attend regular meetings and be allowed to live at home. They also attend