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Prison Population Research Paper

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America’s Increasing Prison Population In the United States of America, we currently have approximately 2.2 million people in our jails and prisons and we incarcerate our citizens at a rate that is greater than any other country. Our number of incarcerated have increased 500% during the past thirty years. (The Sentencing Project) As of 2005, we had 737 people incarcerated for every 100,000 citizens in the United States, whereas the rest of world only put 166 people in jail for the same 100,000 people. (International Centre for Prison Studies 2007) It is obvious that something we do in the United States is having a direct impact on these burgeoning imprisonment numbers. The increase in the prison population really started to dramatically …show more content…
However a lot of this has been because of American’s frustration with a rising crime rate and a demand that our government do something about it. With the increase in prison population, we have seen a corresponding decrease in the crime rates across American, in all categories including violent and non-violent. So in that aspect, the prisons are doing their part in the ongoing war on crime. Yet we are housing these prisoners, not rehabilitating them. More than half of the inmates released from prison will return back to prison within three years of being put back into society. When the inmates are released, they have no support system, and in a majority of cases, their previous prison sentence destabilized whatever family they had, which leads them back to a life of crime. (The PEW Center on the …show more content…
This bill would have eliminated the mandatory sentences of five and ten years for drug offenses and actually put that discretion back into the hands of judges. It also would have gone a long way to help reduce the disparity in the incarceration of minorities, making both crack and powder cocaine equal offenses. Currently crack cocaine, predominately used by minorities, carries greater sentences. The bill still has not passed, but in light of this bill, the United States Sentencing Commission voted in 2014 to reduce the sentencing guidelines that applied to the majority of federal drug crimes. In doing so, Judge Patti Saris, Commission Chair, said “This modest reduction in drug penalties is an important step toward reducing the problem of prison overcrowding at the federal level in a proportionate and fair manner. Reducing the federal prison population has become urgent, with that population almost three times where it was in 1991.” (USSC

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