Managing Time in the American Correctional System - Essay Example

MANAGING TIME THE AMERICAN CORRECTION SYSTEM Yes, it is true that when inmates have too much time on their hands problems tend to fester. Prisoners often spend much of their time inactive throughout their sentences. They are subject to neglect thus remaining idle and are tempted to involve themselves in narcotics abuse and other social evils. Some tend to organize themselves in gangs involved in intimidating and going to the point of killing the ones who don’t play their game. Inmates are being abandoned without being offered skills the necessary to them in the form of training. Inmates because of having too much time to waste and tend to involve themselves involve themselves in immoral acts. The prison and correctional activities often don’t take concern in them as their morals decay because of having nothing to do. Training, for example, would help them utilize their time well and by extension equip them with skills necessary to change their course of life when they finish their terms in prison. Education and training form a vital part in the rehabilitation of prisoners. Programs geared towards Education, Training, to prevent a recurring revolving door effect There is a revolving door force in the US correctional facilities. The concern is that they are a majority inmates are leaving the penitentiary without undergoing rehabilitation and behavior change. They are being also left without any life skills and training they could otherwise utilize after finishing their time in prison. It makes drug abuse to be a way of life for the inmates. Instead, the prison activities should have a goal of eradicating these vices. It is for example disturbing to enter prison without any drug-related problems yet while they are being released as drug users. The aim of the jail should be getting inmates off drug abuse and not providing an environment conducive to nurturing drug addicts. Prisons are thus indeed to focus more on rehabilitating its prisoners by training to equip them with skills that will make them responsible citizens when they are being released (Cole &Christopher). If the US is being determined in population reduction in its prisons, one vital strategy should be geared towards reducing the relapse in behavior released prisoners. For example, many tend to be rearrested and returned to prison because they got back to their criminal ways or drug abuse. Presently, many US prisoners both men and women sentenced to prison sometimes. When inmates are being released with little or education or training they will be unable to get employment, they resort to their criminal lives and end up being imprisoned again. Many strategies can be integrated to reduce this revolving door effect in the US prisons. Essentially the lives of ex-prisoners are dependent on what skills they learned while they were serving jail terms. Around the US, the prison facilities are needed to make hard choices because they are under pressure due to budget constraints. Reducing rehabilitation services is not an option to keep up with the budget constraint. It will end up being costly since the same inmates will be back to prisons because they were not transformed. Rehabilitation services are vital in providing vocational training, and correctional education helps change lives since it changes ex-convicts to become responsible citizens. Yearly, more than 750,000 inmates end up being released from the US penitentiaries. However, within four years of being released, five out of nine ex-convicts ultimately get back into prison. Most violate the terms of their freedom and end up being found guilty by committing new crimes. These numbers could dramatically change if inmates accessed more training and education while doing their terms behind bars. Recent studies have showed that prisoners who involve themselves in programs on correctional education, vocational training or remedial education were unlikely to go back to prison. On the other hand, a high percentage of those who were not involved end up back in jail. Prisoners receiving correctional and rehabilitation education in prison are in a position to find employment when they are released hence do not end up breaking the law. On the other hand those who do not participate get no employment at all thus go back to breaking the law and are being rearrested. Programs in vocational training need to be connected to job skills that are specific. It can include training on computer, welding, automobile mechanics and construction work. Besides, prisoners can benefit out of programs providing preparation on ways of finding employment. Strategies on how to go through an interview in a professional way can be demonstrated. With tight budgets and tough times, the cost of providing training in prisons is beneficial in the long run. Inmates who are released will not find their way into crime and get back to prison again. It will help reduce the populations in prison and hence decrease the cost of running them. The state would be able to cut on costs of managing a larger population in state penitentiaries. The benefits from prison education and training extend beyond the walls of prisons. When ex-convicts get employment and stay out of jail, their communities and families have a lot to gain too. The state also benefits since the ex-prisoners will be productive, responsible and law abiding citizens who will help run the economy. Distinction between racism as it pertains to correctional system It is morally not right to discrimination on the basis of ethnicity and race since it violates the equality principle. In most instances, the context African Americans are often prejudiced in jail by their white individuals because of the color of their skin. They are viewed to be more inferior. White prisoners feel superior compared to the African Americans counterparts. It has contributed to increased levels of racism in American prisons. White gangs in correctional facilities often discriminate and segregate against the blacks. It leads to animosity between the two races where they become violent to each other thus undermining the security in prison. Inmates in the US have the tendency to isolate each other by race by race. In the US correctional system, black prisoners have reported that they face racial discrimination since they marginalized or even segregated. They are ridiculed, demeaned and degraded in the system. Correctional systems ought to intervene and initiate activities that reach out to the black community and treat all inmates correctly and with equality. The US correctional system has become an environment where racism is dominant. The cause of violence and riots among inmates is in rebellion to racial discrimination and segregation based on color. The blacks and white gangs go to the extent of brutally murdering themselves in prison. The inmates often segregate and separate themselves so as to protect themselves. In cells, prison authorities separate the whites and blacks from occupying one cell. It makes the prison a breeding ground for violent racial gangs since they organize themselves along racial lines. Racial intolerance due to prejudice is becoming dominant. Studies have shown that segregation in correctional systems has encouraged violence. Desegregation measures like letting incoming inmates randomly select their cell mates will eventually promote tolerance in prison. Reasons why African Americans and minorities are often being given harsher sentences Minority groups and African Americans have been subject to racial discrimination in their sentencing after they commit crimes. The whites, for example, have been given lenient sentences compared to the blacks have been handed harsher sentences. It has been evident in the US judicial system that disparities have emerged in terms of decisions concerning sentencing. It has made human rights organizations petition the government to undertake steps to mitigate this trend. Statistics reveals that sentences given to African American individuals are being usually elongated by margins of 18% to those of whites who have committed same crimes. The same applies to minorities in the US like the Latinos who have been handed longer sentences compared to the whites. About homicide cases, research, has also shown that race is the determining factor on the length of sentencing handed out. Racial disparities have led to the increase in the severity and duration of sentences were given to African Americans and minority communities like the Latinos. The number of Black prisoners condemned to life imprisonment is higher compared to the whites. Most of the whites convicted are eligible for parole while the blacks are being denied parole. The sentencing inequality margin is even wider with regards to juvenile offenders. These disparities in racial have resulted in unfair treatment of African Americans at the various stages of criminal justice systems. The blacks are subject to random searches, stops, prosecutions, negotiations of plea and arrests while their white counterparts are being treated with utmost respect. It leads to African Americans facing unfair sentencing and trial since they are presumed to be guilty till proven innocent. The race has an impact on the aspects and phases of the criminal process. It includes the availability of plea, charging and the quality of representation from state attorneys. The African Americans have often been labeled as potential offenders and are associated with criminal acts like drug related offenses. The defendants who are blacks or minority group face considerably more harsh charges compared to whites. African-Americans are the targeted group and their punishment aggressively compared to the whites people. The US criminal and judicial system has thus been labeled as racist because of controversies in its decisions. The problem of African-American and minorities’ harsh sentencing is systemic in the American urban society and implies slavery of today. The criminal justice system in the US is discriminating and is racist to the African American people by ensuring they remained locked up and enslaved in prisons. The African Americans are a target of The War on Drugs and a narcotic trafficking that has led to them being arrested now and then. Thus, the system is essentially enslaving them by denying them the freedom to being heard. The police departments go to the extent of practicing corrupt to ensure the African Americans and minorities are being implicated.The media including news stations and newspapers portray the African Americans to be criminals. It has resulted in places where they reside to become a target of enforcement of the law. The cops are being given barely credible sources of information by the media who are biased and create racial and ethnic profiling. After African Americans get arrested and sentenced, they are subject to harassment during interrogation so as to force them to own up to crimes. Even after their release from their long-term prison sentencing the society does not give support to them. Thus, the criminal justice system has been converted a channel propagating modern day slavery. The system has created a perpetual hierarchy racially in the US. The system is discriminatory since it plays critical and precise role in making sure the African Americans are seen to have a criminal record. The system makes sure that they remain jailed in cells just like slaves. This racism in the American judicial system is becoming systematic in the American urban society and can be seen as modern day slavery. In the recent past, enormous sums of the Administration’s funds were dedicated to research on improved ways of catching identifying the criminals. Interestingly, the whites are not the target because they are viewed to be law abiding citizens. This funding narrows down to the African America and the minority groups like the Latinos who are viewed to be criminals. It is because crime has to be made a symbol for the race American criminal justice system disguises its racist ways by using the war on drugs to form an image for the stereotype of the criminal who is an African American (Dow 189). It is true to say that African Americans still harboring that slave mentality and using it as crutches and stunting their growth to succeed in society. Without the chance for correction and rehabilitation, African Americans after being released find themselves back in jail. It is because the problem that had initially caused their sentencing relapses because it was not solved. The slave mentality in them makes them plead guilty to charges so as to get a lenient sentencing even though they may be innocent. It makes them stigmatized. After their release from prison, finding employment becomes extremely difficult jobs and housing. Unemployed blacks end up becoming violent and depressed. They become tempted to re-enter crime. It stunts their development since they spend their time in between prisons instead of involving themselves in constructive activities. Because they do not have any other ways of making money, they become unable to make bail and are forced to go back to jail. Slavery depended hugely on extremist thoughts to weaken African-Americans into property status. African Americans relied on upon the slave owner to survive and were being segregated from the outside world. In penitentiaries today, the high number of African American detainees depends on their gatekeepers for primary human needs. They are being likewise separated from their family and companions, and scarcely see the light of day. After servitude, Black Codes were upheld that just criminalized the African American population and they were taken characteristically as criminals. Idleness and assembling out in the open were banned. It prompted huge imprisonment of African Americans. Law execution characterizes the common criminal as an African American and used vast authorization just on that population to secure them up confines. There were additionally limited on their right to movement and flexibility. The criminal fairness frameworks idea of the African American or Latino was denied. Whites made laws to criminalize these African Americans ordinary exercises. The orders were made to limit unlawful behavior and legal activities in specific limits for individuals associated with being black persons. The clearest relationship in the between slavery and massive imprisonment is with the force labor and the use control used to intimidate prisoners today. The new laws should not permit prisoners to be used as slaves, but rather they should be paid for work done after they finish their terms. The payment they get will enable them restart their lives when they are released. This way they will avoid being tempted to join crime and drug trafficking. Still to this moment, African Americans make up most of the convict population and are misused in cells just as slaves. They are used by prison facilities to clean oil leaks, battle fires, and make college furniture, attire, hardware, and military gear. Strategies to stop prisoners being used as slaves should be initiated into law. (Noble 124). Reference Cole F. and Christopher E. The American System of Criminal Justice. 12th ed. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth Cengage Learning, 2010. Print. Dow, M. American Gulag: Inside U.S. Immigration Prisons. Berkeley: U of California, 2004. Print. Noble, R. Black Rage in the American Prison System. New York: LFB Scholarly Pub., 2006. Print. Read More