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STATUS QUO – REFORM – REVOLUTION THIS PAPER MUST BE WRITTEN FROM THE UNITED STATES CRIMINAL JUSTICE SYSTEM ONLY. PLEASE FOLLOW THE INSTRUCTIONS CAREFULLY. General idea: Choose a specific aspect of the CJ system – cops, courts, or corrections – and identify an area that you want to make healthier, just, and powerful. (…notice I did not say more punitive, controlling, or dominating!) First (labeled section one), identify the realm (cops, courts, corrections) and specific concern in that realm as it is currently based on your scholarly understanding. ← This is the STATUS QUO. Notice that the requirement is for a specific concern – if you are too general/vague with this aspect of the assignment, your entire effort will fall short – be specific. What is problematic about the issue you’ve identified (labeled section two) ? Next, consider either a REFORM to this CJ concern or a REVOLUTION to this specific CJ concern (labeled section three). Why would your vision make a difference in the issue you’ve identified (labeled section four)? Next, if you choose to discuss REFORM, why not REVOLUTION? If you choose to discuss REVOLUTION, why not REFORM? (whichever you choose, labeled section five) Make sure you understand the difference between REFORM and REVOLUTION. Finally, a brief summative/close to your paper (wrap it up!) (labeled section six). |
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Name of Student
Name of Professor
Criminal Justice Paper
8 October 2015.
Status Quo Reform Revolution in the United States
Contents
Section One: Status Quo in the Prison System.. 1
Section Two: Problematic Aspects within the Prison System.. 2
Section Three: Reform or Revolution?. 3
Section Four: Why My Vision for Prison Reform Would Make a Difference. 6
Section Five: Why Reform and Not Revolution?. 7
Introduction
Section One: Status Quo in the Prison System
The aspect of the criminal justice system that this scholarly paper sets out to address is the prison system. A major concern regarding the corrections system is that prisons have been expanding since the 1970s even at during those times when crime rate has decreased. Between 1970 and 2013, the number of prisoners increased from 338,000 to 2.3 million (Nolan and Khan 2). This rate prison population growth is over three times higher than that of America’s population. Between the mid-1920s and the early 1970s, there were on average 110 prisoners in both federal and state correctional facilities for every 100,000 Americans (Gottschalk 3). Since then, the incarceration rate has increased by over 75 percent (Gottschalk 38). In other words, incarceration rates are needlessly high in the United States; in fact, the country has the highest incarceration rate in the developed world. The idea of incarcerating more and more people as a way of fighting crime has been supported by both sides of the political divide. Consequently, the number of crimes that are punishable by capital punishment and life sentences has been dramatically increased,
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Whenever crime rate has decreased, the government has attributed it to the ongoing locking up of more criminals. However, there is a point beyond which longer sentences and increased incarceration rates cannot lead to an increase in public safety. Moreover, such measures have led to a rapid rise in the cost of managing prisons. The situation today is such that prisons continue expanding even when crime rates drop, leading to ever-increasing prison costs (Blumstein and Wallman 119). The expectation would be that few crimes would translate into lower costs since the government would begin reducing the number and size of prisons. In the states, the only system where spending is increasing at a rate higher than prisons is Medicaid. In 2012, the states channeled some $54 billion into the prison system (Nolan and Khan 3).
Section Two: Problematic Aspects within the Prison System
The problematic aspects of the ongoing expansion of the prison system are twofold. First, the government is promoting the expansion of an inefficient prison system. Recidivism rates in American prisons are very high – 50 percent of prisoners who are released end up back in prison within a span of three years (Vásquez, Maddan and Walker 177). This means that the prisons are not only expanding but also becoming increasingly inefficient in their rehabilitation and reparation functions. Second, the ongoing expansion investment is being undertaken at the expense of other crucial government functions such as infrastructure, healthcare, and education. Thus, the prison system is increasingly becoming an end in itself rather than a means to an end. This is a worrisome trend because accountability in prisons is lacking, such that prisons have become the only enterprise where failure guarantees growth.
Although the prisons system is in ruins it is business as usual, and expansion efforts are ongoing. Such an expansion is ideally meant to ensure that citizens are safer, though it is unlikely to achieve this objective in its current mode of operation. On the contrary, it will primarily work the interests of those who have continued to live off the system, including contractors and government workers.
The faulty argument that allows the excesses of the prison system to remain pervasive is that prisons should be operated differently from other government agencies. Consequently, many activities have been criminalized, leading to a situation where the incarceration rate in America is higher than at any other time in the country’s history (Gottschalk 1). Traditionally government’s imposition of criminal sanctions was reserved for heinous crimes such as rape, robbery, arson, and murder. Today, things have changed a lot because prison growth is not being driven by the need to lock up the most dangerous people but rather by the criminalization of society. For example, almost half of the people serving sentences in federal prisons have been incarcerated for drug-related offenses (Caulkins and Chandler 624). The point here is that many of the inmates serving sentences today are not in prison because they are a danger to society but merely because they somewhat fell short in their efforts to keep up with the government’s regulatory controls.
Section Three: Reform or Revolution?
The best way to address the problem of expanding prison system is through prison reform. This reform process should primarily involve halting the expansion of the current growth by ensuring that the incarceration rate is at the same level as that of other developed countries. That would mean ensuring that the federal and state prison population is reverted to its historical average of 110 prisoners for every 100,000 Americans. To achieve this goal, state governments as well as the federal government would need to reduce their incarceration rates by over 75 percent.
There are several measures that federal and state prison authorities can do in order to achieve this ambitious goal. The first measure is to ensure that available prison space is made a priority for the most dangerous offenders. In other words, the country should quarantine only those people who are too dangerous to be left to live freely with the rest of the American society. In the expanded prison system of today, too many people are being imprisoned even when they do not pose any danger to society. For example, certain types of prisoners, such as drug users are low-risk offenders.
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Another measure involves looking for more cost-effective methods of rehabilitation. For example, it is more cost-effective to rehabilitate a drug addict than to imprison him for a certain term of years. Another category of prisoners whose population continues to grow is that of mentally ill people. More and more of these types of offenders are being incarcerated instead of being rehabilitated. Majority of these individuals are not a danger to society and can therefore be rehabilitated and given access to medications in order to live an orderly life just like the rest of society. These efforts can go a long way towards helping to reduce the growing prisoner population.
The third measure is that the prison system needs to be reformed in terms of idleness among inmates. Having a huge prisoner population that is idle most of the time simply because of imprisonment is a recipe for disaster (Feeley and Rubin 87). In most cases, prisoners engage in violence, drug use, and jail breaks simply because of idleness. Moreover, first offenders can easily be inducted into the world of hardened criminals by spending too much time idling together with those hardcore criminals. To eliminate idleness while at the same time hastening the rehabilitation process, there is a need for various educational and occupational programs to be introduced in American prisons. The idea is to transform prisons into centers of vocational training where prisoners can learn valuable skills that they can use to earn a livelihood once they go back to society. Other efforts that can help to reduce recidivism include facilitating dialogue between offenders and victims, introducing mentoring programs for offenders, and creating new opportunities for reparation such as provision of service to the neighborhoods that may have been negatively affected by the offender’s criminal activities.
Lastly, it would be necessary to look at the reform process with some broader vision aimed at driving wide-reaching change. In this broader vision, focus should be on human and civil rights issues surrounding incarceration as well as comparison with policy trends in other developed nations that have succeeded in achieving and maintaining lower incarceration rates (Gottschalk 249). The objective should be to ensure that the legitimacy of the current prison system is not challenged and despised by some sections of society such as racial minorities and the working class due to the perception of discrimination. Unless the legitimacy of the system is protected the mistrust between those in power and those in lower classes will continue to exist, and in the long run this situation may not reflect positively on the penal reform process. Some of the aspects of the penal reform process that require support from all interest groups, social movements, governing institutions, and political leaders in society include relaxation of penal policy, cost-cutting of prison budgets, and initiatives for sending drug offenders into treatment and rehabilitation centers instead of prison.
In this reform proposal, a lot of focus is indeed on rehabilitation and reparation. It is worthwhile to focus primarily on these areas considering that half of the inmates who get out of American jails end up returning there within three years. This is an indication of failure within the rehabilitation system, and efforts to make the necessary amendments should take precedence in any prison reform proposal. Once the efficiency of the prison system has been enhanced to reduce recidivism by at least 50 percent, the rationale for cutting-back on prison spending and relaxing penal policy can begin to start to appear somewhat justifiable. American citizens may begin to overcome the perception that a shrinking prisoner population automatically translates into an increase in crime rates.
Section Four: Why My Vision for Prison Reform Would Make a Difference
One major reason why my vision would make a difference is that both state and federal budgets are increasingly being put under pressure due to economic problems affecting America. Thus, it makes sense for efforts to be made to ensure that the expansion of prisons is halted through efforts to make them leaner and more cost-effective. After all, the prison system has become the fast-growing government agency in terms of budgetary allocation, yet there is hardly any return on this investment since incarceration rates continue to increase instead of decreasing.
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Another important reason is that my vision puts into consideration the multiplicity of factors that have contributed to the criminalization of the American society as evidenced by the problem of growing prison population as well as the recent growth in prison budgets at both federal and state levels. There are many political, institutional, and historical factors that have contributed to the present problems. For example, politically, the idea of expanding prisons with the expectation that crime rates will drop has gained bipartisan support in recent years. By emphasizing on accountability, rehabilitation, and cost-cutting, this reform vision makes a crucial contribution towards addressing those political, institutional, and historical factors affecting the management of prisons, and would therefore make a huge difference.
Section Five: Why Reform and Not Revolution?
Reform is better than revolution because instituting wide-reaching changes within the criminal justice system is inherently a highly fragile undertaking for any government. A revolution would require changing too many aspects of this system at the same time – the courts, capital punishment laws, drug laws, and racial discrimination. Moreover, a reform process is more likely to be orderly and procedural, unlike a revolution which can easily be sudden and disruptive. Using the reform approach, the government can achieve tremendous success in mobilizing support from diverse mainstream groups, including the judiciary, the legal profession, and academic experts on the prison system. The views of these groups can be very helpful in contributing towards an orderly process of dismantling the recent trend of uncontrolled expansion of prisons at both federal and state levels.
Summative Remarks
In conclusion, the aspect of the criminal justice system that this scholarly paper has looked at is the prison system. Findings indicate that the American society has been overly criminalized because more citizens are being incarcerated than at any other time in the country’s history. At the same time, the prison system is inefficient since half of the inmate population ends up returning to prison three years after being released. Moreover, the prisons have taken the second position, after Medicaid, in terms of cost growth. In light of these problems, a reform process should be commenced. Reform is better than revolution in this case because of the fragility of the task of instituting wide-reaching changes within the criminal justice system. Finally, there are two most crucial efforts that should be pursued in this reform proposal, namely reducing incarceration rates in both federal and state prisons by over 75 percent and cutting back on prison spending.
Works Cited
Gottschalk, Marie. The Prison and the Gallows: The Politics of Mass Incarceration in America. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006, Print.
Nolan, Pat and Khan, Sadiq. Criminal Justice Reform: A Revolution on the American Right. London: Institute for Public Policy Research, 2013. Online.
Vásquez, Bob., Maddan, Sean and Walker, Jeffery. “The Influence of Sex Offender Registration and Notification Laws in the United States: A Time-Series Analysis.” Crime & Delinquency, 54.2 (2008): 175-192.
Caulkins, Jonathan and Chandler, Sara. “Long-Run Trends in Incarceration of Drug Offenders in the United States.” Crime & Delinquency, 52.4 (2006): 619-641.
Blumstein, Alfred and Wallman, Joel. The crime drop in America, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006. Print.
Feeley, Malcolm and Rubin, Edward. Judicial Policy Making and the Modern State: How the Courts Reformed America’s Prisons. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000. Print.
