Why are Prisons over crowed And how can we change this today - Essay Example

husetts Correction Institute at Bridgewater (Boston) in 1855, followed by the Illinois State Penitentiary at Joliet (Chicago), and the Indiana State Penitentiary at Michigan City (South Bend), both in 1860. A new era in the U.S prison system dawned in 1876 when the rehabilitative doctrine was introduced. The new doctrine was accepted with alacrity and enthusiasm, with the first prison in which it was introduced, the Elmira State Reformatory at Elmira (New York), nicknamed “the new penology.” The rehabilitative doctrine was actively implemented in all U.S. prisons between 1900 and 1970.

Since then however, the accessibility and effectiveness of rehabilitative programs have steadily decreased in U.S prisons [Encarta.msn.com]. The U.S has the dubious distinction of having the highest incarceration rate in the world. Its prison population was 1,078,542 in 1995, which rose to 1,316,333 in 2000 and 2,261,876 in 2004 [Encarta.msn.com]. In 2005, the number of people incarcerated was 2,320,359 [Fellner]. The rate of incarceration was 737 inmates per 100,000 U.S residents, or 1 out of every 136 U.

S residents [Drug War Facts]. African-Americans and Hispanics comprised 60% or 1,392,215 of the incarcerated population; among every 10,000 incarcerated inmates, 3,145 were African-American, 1,244 were Hispanics and 471 were whites, thus making the number of African-Americans and Hispanics 6.6 times and 2.4 times more than whites respectively. Of the incarcerated inmates in 2005, 30% of the total female prisoners and 20% of the total male prisoners totaling 337,872 (of whom 133,100 were African-American) were convicted of drug crimes.

93% of all prisoners were male, most of them poor, having an average education level of 11th grade [Fellner]. A 2006 study by the bipartisan Commission on Safety & Abuse in America’s Prisons discovered that within a period of 3 years of their release, 67% of former inmates were arrested and 52% of them were imprisoned again. The study concluded