The US Penal Population and Defining Crime - Essay Example

Introduction It has been researched that he U.S. penal population has two million inmates. From there, the Bureau of Justice Statistics has the approximation that a third of all African American men will be sentenced to prison at some point in their lifetime. According to public opinion surveys found the nation’s leading social problem is linked to crime or drugs are ranked first. In further research, it has been found that there are 3,500 prisoners under sentence of death in the United States, which is the longest death row in the country’s history (The Sociology of Crime and Punishment). Therefore, in this field study, the effects of the prison system will be examined while how the police treat people in society will be discussed. Sociology “Sociologists view crime and state responses to crime as historically rooted in a social context. In many cases, patterns of punishment are only loosely related to underlying shifts in criminal behavior and often involve political conflicts over the status of socially marginal groups. This perspective offers valuable insights into the dramatic shifts in criminal behavior and its punishment over the last three decade” (The Sociology of Crime and Punishment). Along with that, some sociologists believe if people felt like that they were being surveillance, they would have more self-control to avoid being judged by others. Furthermore, it would give the surveillancers empowerment over those people who are watched, which is good for the criminal justice system. As a society, police need that empowerment so that criminals can feel a little imitation when they are faced by them. Along with that, from a sociological theory, the criminal justice system can be more effective by using it due to the fact that people are extremely self-aware when being watched and will behave when they know they are being indirectly controlled. Defining Crime Even though the government defines crime and while the government has good intention in protecting U.S. citizens from terrorism, having the authority to go through someone’s personal telephone and email communication while searching through their financial and medical records is truly an invasion of privacy, which goes against everything American stands for. Furthermore, this Patriot Act is unacceptable due to the fact it takes away from living in the land of the free. “On March 9, 2006, President Bush Signed The USA PATRIOT Improvement And Reauthorization Act Of 2005. Since its enactment in October 2001, the Patriot Act has been vital to winning the War on Terror and protecting the American people. The legislation signed today allows intelligence and law enforcement officials to continue sharing information and using the same tools against terrorists already employed against drug dealers and other criminals. While safeguarding Americans civil liberties, this legislation also strengthens the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) so that it can better detect and disrupt terrorist threats, and it also gives law enforcement new tools to combat threats. America still faces dangerous enemies, and no priority is more important to the President than protecting the American people without delay” (USA PATRIOT Act). Even though this act helps law enforcement to reduce terrorism threats, it gives them the freedom to tap into anybody’s personal information just on a hunch rather than actual fact. Unfortunately, as a society, police need that empowerment over criminals so that they can feel a little imitation when they are faced by them. This works because society as a whole does not want to be looked down upon on and will control themselves in public to avoid embarrassment. The criminal justice system can be more effective because people are extremely self-aware when being watched and will behave when they know they are being indirectly controlled. From there, knowledge is power and power is made for the police in order to have structure in prisons society. However, Gavora argues that the Clinton Justice Department may sue Maryland for allegedly violating prisoners rights at Supermax. This is due to the fact that prisoners are isolated in small concrete cells twenty-three hours a day and are not allowed physical contact with guards or prisoners. Furthermore, they are not permitted to breathe fresh air during that one free hour. Many people believe that that type of isolation is necessary because they are violent prisoners. Along with that many others believe that the states should be allowed to control their prisons without federal interference (3). However, without any federal interference, the prisoners are treated in any kind of way that does not include any set rules and regulations. Since there is not a set standard for supermax prisons, the prisoners are subject to being treated violently because they have a violent history, which only leads to their psychological breakdown that might not be proven to be effective. “Last summer, some 600 inmates in the notorious super maximum-security unit at Californias Pelican Bay State Prison stopped eating. They were protesting the conditions in which the state says it must hold its most difficult prisoners: locked up for 23 hours out of every 24 in a barren concrete cell measuring 7 1/2 by 11 feet. One wall of these cells is perforated steel; inmates can squint out through the holes, but theres nothing to see outside either. In Pelican Bays supermax unit, as in most supermax prisons around the country, the cells are arranged in lines radiating out like spokes from a control hub, so that no prisoner can see another human being--except for those who are double-bunked” (Abramsky 4). Furthermore, within the supermax prisons, meals are slid to the inmates through a slot in the steel wall while some prisoners are kept in isolation even for the one hour per day that they are allowed out to exercise. At this point, they are all are shackled whenever they are taken out of their cells. Unfortunately a lot of prisoners are forced to live this way for years on end (Abramsky 4). This is not doing anything except for breaking prisoners down in such a psychological way that it is more damaging than helpful. The purpose of prison is to rehabilitate and not break down to a point they cannot function properly within a social setting. “Such extreme deprivation, the food strikers said, literally drives people crazy. Many experts agree. But the protest died out after two weeks, according to the jailhouse lawyer who organized it; and though a state senator promised that he would look into the strikers complaints, so far conditions at Pelican Bay remain unchanged. All told, more than 8,000 prisoners in California and at least 42,000 around the country, by the conservative estimate of the Corrections Yearbook, are currently held in similar conditions of extreme confinement. As of 2000, Texas alone boasted 16 supermax prisons and supermax units, housing some 10,000 inmates. In Florida, more than 7,000 inmates were double-bunked in such facilities and the corrections department was lobbying to build another one (at an estimated cost of nearly $50 million) to house an additional 1,000 offenders” (Abramsky 4) Rhodes, who is a University of Washington researcher, is very concerned with the high percentage of mentally ill inmates who are remaining in supermax units. She further argues that many people who would have been institutionalized in public psychiatric hospitals that were closed in the 1970s and 80s have been imprisoned instead and some wind up in control units. Examining the difference between the mentally ill or "dings," as they are sometimes called in prison, from other inmates is an on-going source of contention between corrections and mental health workers (Schwarz 5). "Supermax units isolate inmates and cause some people to deteriorate," said Rhodes. "Others may not be mentally ill when they go in but develop symptoms such as hallucinations. Others become more violent as a result of the isolation. Mentally ill people tend to be hard to reason with, and may be shouting and raving all day and night in their cells” (Schwarz 5). Conclusion Within society, the statements that are made by the government authorities are true because they are the power among people, which gives them more control and the authority to define crime. By using this power, police can have upper hand on crime and criminals due to the fact that people become intimidated those who have a power over them. In other words, the law was made for the police and criminal justice to gain and maintain a power over society. When people believe there is a power that can restrain them, they have more self-control in order to avoid others who look down on them and embarrassment. Furthermore, the law was made to give society structure under the criminal justice system. Gavora, Jessica. "The prisoners accomplice. " Policy Review. n79 (Sept-Oct 1996 n79): 6(2). General OneFile. Gale. Greenville Technical College Library. 5 December 2008. http://find.galegroup.com/ips/start.do?prodId=IPS Abramsky, Sasha. "Return of the madhouse: supermax prisons are becoming the high-tech equivalent of the nineteenth-century snake pit. " The American Prospect. 13.3 (Feb 11, 2002): 26(4). General OneFile. Gale. Greenville Technical College Library. 5 December 2008 http://find.galegroup.com/ips/start.do?prodId=IPS Total Confinement paints portrait of life inside maximum security prisons. Schwarz , Joel. 11 February 2004. Social Science. 5 December 2008. Read More