...he purpose of prisons has been changing throughout history. He went from being a mere means for retaining a sentence I expected to be a sentence in itself. In some countries (mostly democratic), a medium that had as objective the protection of society from that which could be dangerous to her while trying to reintegration, but also could be used as a means of political pressure in difficult times. Michel Foucault in his "Surveiller et punish" ( Discipline and Punish ) notes that its use as punitive punishment of crime, is a recent phenomenon that was instituted during the nineteenth century . Earlier, jail, only used to hold prisoners who were waiting to be sentenced (or not) effectively (punishment, execution or rejection). The prisoners were held in the same space, regardless of their offense and had to pay child support. The disruption was such that the same crime suspects could, with ease, change the version of events before processing. The application of justice at the time was in the public domain. It showed the torture to which they were subjected defendants and their executions. Michel Foucault mentions the large venues or the ship of fools, as particular examples of detention prior to the modern era. Contrary to the conviction that establishes a prison sentence on the offense, the prisons of the time served as a means of exclusion for all marginalized people (criminals, crazy, sick, orphaned, homeless, prostitutes, etc..) All were imprisoned, haphazardly, to silence...
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...According to (Siegel, L. et al., 2014) as the Big House era came to an end in near the end final part of the twentieth century, prison culture experienced a sudden and striking change, taking on new forms in its arrangement, language, and more (Siegel, L. et al 2014). According to study and research, Donald Clemmer emphasized the effect of prison culture on inmates (Siegel, L. et al., 2014). What aroused the curiosity of the prison authorities was how that culture started to exist in the first place. Did it arise without any apparent external cause or automatically within prison walls (Siegel, L. and Bartollas, C. 2014)? Apart from the prison cultures that were discussed the two prison cultures that have been noticed most are the deprivation...
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...History of State and Federal Prisons The State and Federal Prison Systems have a lot of similarities with a few differences. Both of these systems are unique in their own kind of way and have a rich history in the United Sates. The following paper will be a short discussion of the history of the state and federal prison systems. The state prison systems of today were founded on the nineteenth-century penitentiary, which was based on the legal reforms of the eighteenth-century Age of Enlightenment. The penitentiary was based on legal reforms where scholars searched for a more humane and reform-oriented alternatives to death and other physical punishments that were all too common in that time. Principles of isolation, work, and compliant attitudes were implanted upon inmates in order to alter the nature of confinement. Maximum security was the norm for the early penitentiaries, which included high walls, guard towers, cell blocks stacked in tiers, and massive concrete and steel construction. Prisoners were controlled with isolation and high levels of intimidation and swift punishment if rules were broken. Security level that have been created over time to separate criminals by the type of crime they have committed and whenever or not they are a risk to themselves or others are maximum security, close-high security, medium security, minimum security, and open security prisons. The federal Bureau of Prisons was created in 1930 by an act of Congress signed into law by President...
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...institution or at Valley State Prison, the nation's second-largest women's prison, which recently opened across the street. The compounds occupy the tiny farm town of Chowchilla, where almond and alfalfa groves surround the 50,000-volt electrified fence. To the crop dusters above, the flat gray-and-peach buildings must look like a giant corrections butterfly, shielding up to 8,000 women in the 1,340-acre spread of its cinder-block wings. The predominant types of offenses women tend to commit -- petty theft, check forgery, drug possession -- are nonviolent and low-level, yet women's rates of incarceration have steadily gone up, surpassing men's for the past 14 years. The increases are largely due to changes in sentencing and drug laws, and all the trouble that rides the particular poverty track most of these women are on. Many receive state-prison terms for crimes that previously earned probation. Between 1986 and 1991, the number of women in state prisons for drug offenses increased 433 percent (compared with 283 percent for men). Nationally, at the beginning of this year, there were 69,028 women in state prisons -- more than 9,600 in California alone. What this means is that the days of minivans with matrons escorting serious offenders to reformatory-style prisons are receding as more tractor-trailers pull into view. In the world of corrections, an inmate is an inmate is an inmate. In the nation's imagination, too, all inmates are the same. Yet prison administrators, corrections...
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...Today, prisons all over the world is overpopulated and most of the expenses are paid in account on the taxpayers’ behalf. Some inmates are not necessarily criminals, but prison seems to be the solution to anybody that slightly troubled the law. In Julia Sudbury’s Maroon Abolitionists, anti-prison groups strongly discouraged the Prison-Industrial Complex and worked against it to prevent private corporations from making profits and focused to imply a correctional facility to better the individual. With significant increases in population of inmates yearly, it is crucial to seek improvement in correcting the system and treated with fair access. Prison-Industrial Complex (PIC) is an interaction that shares interest of all who helps expand the prison system for personal profits, from monetary profits, political power, control of resources, ownership of properties, etc… It is a system where the private corporate put their self before others and for personal benefits. Inmates are often discriminated based on their race, gender, or culture so the private prison companies can reach their potential power. In Julia Sudbury, Maroon Abolitionists, she showed that the U.S. currently incarcerates approx. 2.3 million people, similarly 762 per 100,000. There are 167,000 prisoners in all of California. 60% of those incarcerated in prison are an ethnic minority. Statistics showed that three quarters of all inmates for drug related offenses are people of color. 1 in every 8 black males in their...
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...s t i t u t e Table of Contents Introduction: The national and local problem of drug imprisonment 3 Methodology 4 Finding 1: Treatment can be less expensive than a term of imprisonment 5 Finding 2: Treatment can be cost effective 6 Finding 3: Treatment can reduce substance abuse and recidivism while building communities 9 Finding 4: Promising treatment models exist in Maryland and around the country 11 Maryland: Break The Cycle The Correctional Options Program (COP) Drug Courts: Maryland and the National Perspective California’s Substance Abuse and Crime Prevention Act (SACPA) 11 12 13 14 Conclusion: Drug treatment can be more effective than cycling people in and out of prison 18 Endnotes 20 About the Authors Treatment or Incarceration? was primarily authored by Doug McVay, former research director for Common Sense for Drug Policy, a non-profit dedicated to expanding discussion on drug policy by educating the public about alternatives to current policies. He is the author and editor of Drug War Facts, an annual compendium of reliable information on the impact of the drug policy on criminal justice and public health issues. This brief was co-authored by Vincent Schiraldi and Jason Ziedenberg, who are, respectively, Executive Director and Director of...
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...| A NEW CONCEPT FOR THE MISSOURI DEPARTMENT OF CORRECTIONS | MISSOURI REENTY PROCESs | 1004,433 and counting. The Missouri Department of Corrections continues to grow by leaps and bounds. The Missouri Prison population as of 08-2009 consists of 104,433 inmates. This includes both male and female inmates. Missouri seeks to stem the tide of inmates, by using a new concept called the Missouri Reentry Process. At this time, there are approximately 104,433 inmates being supervised by the Missouri Department Of Corrections. There are 53,437 on Probation, 30,608 incarcerated, 17,663 on Parole, and 2,725 on Interstate compact. There are also many Inmates supervised by Community and Institutional Programs. There are 681 in Community Release Centers, 235 in Residential Facilities, 988 on Electronic Monitoring, 4,328 in Community Treatment Centers, and 2,491 in Drug Court. While the number of Inmates continue to grow in Missouri, there is a solution in site. The solution is a new concept called the Missouri Reentry Process. Prior to the Missouri Reentry Process, inmates were pretty much on their own when they were released. If the inmate was released on Probation or Parole, they were expected to comply with any and all stipulations assigned to them by the Probation and Parole Board. The stipulation were in place to keep track of their progress when returning to society. Some inmates that had been sentenced to short term incarceration, like a 120 day call back or shock...
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...like a retreat from society where the criminal would be sent to in order to try to learn the right path in life. They were to go there to repent the crimes and bad things that they had done in their life and strive towards cleaner living. They were to be rehabilitated into members of society that did not need to be separated from the rest of society because of their criminal nature. Part of the goal that the reformers had in mind for the inmates at the penitentiary was that they would be put to work rather than be idle during the day. This makes sense as many of the reformers were religious individuals. The main differences between the two models, the Eastern model and the Auburn model, were what were required to build these prisons, the amount of staff to run them and the work done by the prisoners. In the Eastern...
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...The Current Status of Prison Privatization Research on American Prisons Gerald G. Gaes. Ph. D. Florida State University August 2010 Introduction In many ways, any discussion of prison privatization strikes at the heart of the fundamental goals and purposes of prison and punishment. The discussion elevates such themes as the role of the private sector in administering punishment, the importance of metrics to evaluate and compare how well the privately and publicly operated prisons provide services, the structure and form of oversight and accountability to insure punishment is just and fair, and the measurement of cost and efficiency. To be sure, many of these issues are crucial even in the absence of a privatization debate. However, because there are impassioned proponents and opponents on both sides of the issue, the prison privatization literature has provoked both earnest debate and fractious polemic. One might expect that the importance of this topic would have elevated prison privatization research and encouraged the funding of large scale studies. In fact, there are very few studies comparing privately and publicly operated facilities. Segal and Moore (2002) identified about 23 U.S. cost comparison studies and fewer quality studies. Many of those studies were of questionable value. The most recent review, a meta-analysis by Lundahl et. al. (2009) only identified 12 studies of cost and quality meeting their criteria for sound methodology. Even with...
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...The key factors that are present in prisons are that there have been 9 different eras in which different systems were used to punish prisoners(Schmalleger & Smykla, 2015). Since 1985 to present times the Just Desert Era was the last and final era and is still being used. Under this philosophy “offenders are punished because they deserve it”(Schmalleger & Smykla, 2015). Also, it is not concerned with inmate's rehabilitation, treatment, or reform(Schmalleger & Smykla, 2015). With the new changes dealing with issuing the punishments occurring has cause for the prison's population becoming overcrowded which push for supermax and no-frills prisons(Schmalleger & Smykla, 2015). The prisons today provide inmates with the opportunity of different kind...
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...time are housed at these privately run institutions. Of the 1.57 million prisoners under arrest in state and federal prisons as of 2012, 137,220 were housed at private correctional the percentage of the U.S. prison population housed in private institutions increased from 8.2 percent in 2011, to 8.7 percent in 2012. Public prisons are government run institutions and, as such, are area under discussion to the laws of the control in which they are placed. In this organization, problems in such prisons can be addressed by the responsible governmental unit. Data reports pertaining to federal correctional institutions are maintained by the Bureau of Prisons (“BOP”), a component of the U.S. Department of Justice (“DOJ”), as well as Immigration and Customs Enforcement (“ICE”), a component of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (“DHS”) that handles immigration detentions. Both agencies are subject to the Freedom of Information Act (“FOIA”), which provides the public with a method to access these records. State and local government run prisons as well generate records that are subject to the open records laws of the states in which they are to be found. By dissimilarity, private prisons are not issue to the FOIA and normally are not subject to state open records laws. Current efforts to expand state open records laws to private prisons on the theory the prisons are performance as “public agencies” within the sense of the significant state law have had...
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... This paper provides an analysis of human rights catastrophe in our jails and prisons that people have to confront. And the author points out prisons’ growth can't be isolated from problems of our society, such as racism, poverty and global capitalism. And I want to talk about is the time for the prison approaching an end? Since 1970s, prisons have grown exponentially, because there exist a cycle of joblessness and incarceration. A plenty of people lost their jobs and prospects when corporations and deindustrialization migrate to another area. In the mean time, prisons will provide a lot of jobs and bring economic growth to some specific area that need help. When these depressed area gradually recover the economy. The cycle will set up naturally. Then the prisons offer an opportunity let people have excuse to disassociate from problems in our society, such as racism and economic and societal imbalance. Just like a sentence in the article ”It relieves us of the responsibility of seriously engaging with the problems of our society, especially those produced by racism and, increasingly, global capitalism.”(Are Prisons Obsolete? pg. 16) People most of time used to overlook problem of prison system. Conversely, people would like to regard the prisons as a solution to deal with some problems in society. This behavior not only let people ignore how much of a problem prisons are, but also helps us forget about how much we should be doing about other issues, such...
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...There are two types of facilities that incarcerate offenders. Prisons tend to be the long term placement of an offender who is serving more than a year for their sentence. There are different security levels for prisons as well as gender specific locations. Jails are limited to those who are sentenced to less than a year. They also house those waiting transportation as well as witnesses to ensure they attend a court hearing. There are a few levels of security within prisons. They include minimum and medium security, close security, maximum security, supermax, and federal prisons. Minimum and medium security prisons have multiple inmates sleeping in a locked dormitory style setting with communal showers and toilets. The minimum security prison will have a single fence, watched by guards, while the medium security facility is equipped with a double fence which is patrolled. A close security prison is controlled from a remote control station and has one or two person cells, which include their own toilet and sink. Correction programs and work assignments will allow the prisoners to leave their cell, as well as the common area or exercise yard. The boundary is patrolled by a watchtower as well as two fences with an electric fence dividing the two. Depending on the location, some maximum security prisons force prisoners in their cells for 23 hours a day with no contact between the prisoners. The cells are controlled with sliding doors controlled from...
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...structured recreation (Clear, 348).” Correctional officials should provide programs for specific types of prisoners; those who face a language or communication barrier, those with physical or mental disabilities, and prisoners who are serving long sentences. Program activities target the issues most likely to result in ongoing criminal behavior, for example, an inmate with an anti-social attitude would treat emotional or psychological problems that led to their criminality. Prisoners should have the opportunity to better their lives. Programs also assist in showing a readiness for life back into the community. Researchers have found that “inmates who participate in correctional education programs have 43 percent lower odds of returning to prison than those who do not” (Rand, 2013.) Also, having programs is beneficial in assisting parole board decisions and an inmate’s further rehabilitation needs into programs to which they may be placed. For the prisoners who aren’t consistent with security and safety should be an exception in having the ability to participate in programs. Consequences in terms of a prisoner who doesn’t want to come...
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...The history of community corrections shows that many changes have occurred in the criminal justice system regarding punishment of offenders. Shortly after the creation of the penitentiary community, many people came to the view that incarceration was not an appropriate response to address all offenders. As a response to this concern, community corrections such as probation and parole were developed and implemented by the criminal justice system (Travis 1998, p.308). The aim of this paper is to examine the issue of parole, which has been discussed prolong and many controversies related to it have arisen. The essay will explore the advantages and disadvantages of the existence of parole in the criminal justice system. Firstly, various community measures addressing offenders will be explored. Next, a definition of the concept of parole will be provided, followed by a discussion of its' aims and objectives. Next, the advantages and disadvantages of parole will be examined. Finally, the paper will address the issue whether parole is under or over utilised in Australia. The Queensland criminal justice system takes a utilitarian approach to crime, providing inmates with programs designed to help rehabilitate offenders for the long-term benefit of society. Queensland Correctional Services provides offenders with options that are aiming at their rehabilitation and successful reintegration back into society (Qld Department of Corrective Services 2004). These options seek to provide prisoners...
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