The Biggest Issue Facing The American Correction System - Research Paper Example

The biggest issue facing the American correction system al Affiliation: The biggest issue facing the American correction system In every country in the world, there exist structures, systems and mechanisms to handle persons who have been incarcerated for various reasons. These systems and mechanisms in general are referred to as the criminal justice and corrections system. In the United States (US), this system is popularly referred to as the American correctional system. Correctional systems are a vital piece in the puzzle of fighting crime in society. They not only lock away perpetrators of crime, but they also strive to rehabilitate the inmates giving them a better second start at life upon their release. However, the correctional systems today face a myriad of problems and challenges hampering their daily operations. These bottlenecks include overcrowding, funding, inmate radicalization, inmate behavior and many more. These issues need urgent attention to salvage the efficient operations of the correctional systems. This paper will therefore discuss the issues affecting the American correctional system, examining the single most issue that is facing the system. Firstly, it will give a brief definition of the correctional system. Secondly, it will proceed to highlight the issues experienced by the correctional system, examining the biggest problem amongst all the issues. Finally, it will suggest measures that can help resolve these issues. The correctional system also referred to as the prison system, can be defined as an organizational arrangement by the government or authority in place to incarcerate persons convicted of having committed a crime by a court of law. The corrections system is part of the wider criminal justice system, which involves other institutions such as law enforcement departments and the courts. The corrections system serves two major functions; deterrence and rehabilitation (Cole, 2015). Deterrence serves to keeping persons from committing a crime by instilling the fear of being locked away or incarceration whereas rehabilitation serves to rectify and the restore the behaviors of inmates so as to give them a meaningful life when they reenter society. In the American corrections system, prisons constitute the basic and most important institutions. Others include jails, probation and parole centers. The correctional system in the US continues suffer serious problems that hamper its smooth operations. These problems include but not limited to; overcrowding, radicalization of inmates, prisoners deviant behaviors, funding, litigation, negative coverage from the media, mental conditions affecting inmates, lack of staff morale from the prison officers, and lack of proper training of prison officers and guards (Cole, 2015). The radicalization of inmates has become a growing concern in the correctional system today. Members of organized gangs, terrorist groups, and religious sects are quietly and rapidly recruiting inmates into their outfits. The usage of contraband mobile phones inside the prisons are also a contributory factor. The proliferation of violence and other deviant behaviors in prisons is also a problem. It is estimated that about 60 percent of all incarcerated persons in the US are violent (Cole, 2015). This behavior leads to confrontations between inmates and officers. Funding has also been highlighted as one of the bottlenecks the correctional system is facing. Federal budgetary cuts targeting the prison system affects programs such as staff training, consequently affecting job morale. However, overcrowding is the arguably the biggest issue affecting the American correctional system today. Overcrowding, of all issues bugging the prison system, has been cited as the biggest and most troubling. In the US today, over 2 million Americans and other foreign individuals have been incarcerated. This number is growing everyday while the facilities designated to house these prisoners are not being built as fast. Besides the 2 million being held in jails and prisons across the US, another 7 million Americans have been placed under some form of supervision called the penal supervision (Blackburn, 2012). This kind of supervision includes being placed under parole, probation, or house arrest. Several statistical studies have pointed out the fact that the correctional system in the US is facing serious incarceration rates. For instance, according to the International Centre for Prison Studies which is based in the United Kingdom, the US has, in comparison to all the other countries in the world, the highest incarcerations rates. This rate was found to stand at 756 per 100000 persons (Cole, 2015). It is therefore prudent to understand the root cause of this problem. The main problem of prison overcrowding is that by default correction systems do not have control over the process of assigning or admitting new inmates to prisons. The prison system, by extension, also has no control over the length of time inmates are supposed to serve, when they are eligible for probation or parole, and the minimum sentence they should serve while behind bars. The other problem that is seriously contributing to overcrowding is that the construction of new prisons to house these inmates is being limited by federal budget cuts (Blackburn, 2012). Therefore, existing prisons, some of which are very old, have to renovate or simply re-model what they have and this is very costly. It is estimated that it costs over 80 million dollars a day to operate and maintain the prison system in the US. Overcrowding comes with other serious issues. Firstly, it puts pressure on the already limited resources and facilities such as washrooms, dining areas, food, and water. This leads to situations whereby inmates have to compete for the available resources. The weaker ones miss out altogether. Secondly, overcrowding leads to violence. This arises from the competition for the limited available resources. Inmates thus tend to form groups in which they feel will enable them get what is needed thus gang violence is inevitable (Cole, 2015). Gang violence and riots become frequent causing injury and even death of inmates and correctional officers. Thirdly, overcrowding limits inmates from participating in academic and rehabilitation programs. As such, the prison system fails to live up to its objective of rehabilitating inmates. Overcrowding is arguably the biggest headache for the American correction system. The cost of operating these overcrowded state facilities is putting immense pressure on the country’s budget making their funding unsustainable. The basic rights of inmates are also being violated. So what is the way forward? There are a number of propositions that could help salvage the situation. Firstly, the sentences of inmates should be reduced on the basis that they have displayed good behavior. However, this is not the case as only prisoners who have participated in specific drug rehabilitation programs are allowed to have their sentences reduced (Thompson, 2008). Therefore, therefore there should be more rehabilitation programs that will take in more prisoners that eventually mean that more inmates will be released owing to shorter sentences (Allen, 2008). Secondly, the State should release more and more elderly or aged inmates from prisons before the attainment of full sentence. This is because persons who are over the age of 55 are less likely to engage in criminal activities. Thirdly, the State should send back home foreign prisoners to ease the congestion and overcrowding in prisons. Currently, there are over 54000 foreign inmates in the US prison system (Allen, 2008). Finally, court judges should be given more discretion when they make sentencing decisions. This will allow judges to hand down minimum sentences to convicted persons who not only have clean criminal records, but also to persons such as drug offenders with significant criminal records but who at the same time are of little threat to society (Thompson, 2008). In conclusion, the American correctional system is facing serious concerns such as radicalization of inmates, budget cuts that constrain funding among others. However, overcrowding is the biggest challenge as it puts pressure on the few available resources leading to competition amongst inmates. This breeds violence. This problem can however be solved by reducing sentences for prisoners who participate in various rehabilitation programs, releasing elderly prisoners, and giving judges more discretion in sentencing thereby enabling them give shorter sentences to persons who though convicted of a crime, do not pose a threat to society. References Allen, R. (2008). Tackling Prison Overcrowding: Build More Prisons? Sentence Fewer Offenders? London: Policy Press. Blackburn, A. (2012). Prisons: Today and Tomorrow. Boston: Jones & Bartlett Publishers. Cole, G. (2015). American Corrections. California: Cengage Learning. Thompson, A. (2008). Releasing Prisoners, Redeeming Communities: Reentry, Race, and Politics. New York: NYU Press. Read More