Overcrowding In Our Jails and Prisons Today Essays - Criminal Law

Overcrowding In Our Jails and Prisons Today Cyceli Desargent Constitutional Law 10-31-12 I plan on discussing overcrowding in our jails and prisons today. We'll look at the two classes of criminal prisoners kept in our jails and prisons. In addition, I will examine the wide-ranging concepts that affect the numbers of criminal inmates in our jails and prisons. The United States incarcerates substantially more people than any other nation in the world. Actually, the Pew Center on the States reported in 2008 that one in every 100 adults in the U.S. now occupies our prison system. (http://www.pewstates.org/) Since we have been making an effort to ?imprison our way? out of crime for quite some time, federal and state prisons and county jails have become subjected to crisis levels of overpopulation. At the same time, operating funds have been rigorously restricted, as has financing to manufacture new facilities. Over the next couple of years, I expect the conditions will get even worse. At the core of the jail overcrowding problem is the mixture of increasing crime rates with an expanding countrywide population. Investigation points to the fact that when the national economy falloff, crime rates and the frequency of alcohol-related misconduct also increases. Coming from a criminal justice perspective, alcohol lawbreakers are overpowering our orderliness and causing cumbersome court dockets, troublesome caseloads, and filled to capacity jails and prisons. Statistics collected from courts shows that alcohol plays a substantial part as an influencing factor in the crimes that put a large number of people behind bars. Using imprisonment as a punishment for alcohol offenders is not only costly, but is insignificantly successful because it doesn?t help them concentrate on their core problem which is alcohol addiction. A lot of offenders ride out the time they were sentenced to but once they get out they return to their old surroundings with the same situations that caused them to drink in the first place. I believe a large portion of offender?s recidivate if their dependence problem has not been treated and settled. County jail and state prison overcrowding is a disturbing truth, and the courts of our state deal with it on a regular basis. Overcrowding may or may not affect the verdicts judges will make because it will vary from case to case and from one judge to another, but it definitely is a factor. There are many prisoners in local jails who have zilch to do with criminal court. I think judges should focus on those inmates who are in jail because of criminal charges. There are two types of inmates in our jails and prisons. 1. Those that have been charged with crimes and are awaiting trial. 2. Those that have been convicted of crimes and are serving out what they were sentenced to. There are numerous reasons/factors that affect the size of jail inhabitants. These basic concepts are fundamental principles of constitutional law. First and foremost, an offender accused of a crime is assumed to be not guilty of that crime, regardless of what anyone may think about his/her guilt until the he/she i s proven to be guilty. The second is the constitutional authority that while a defendant is waiting for his/her trial for that crime, the defendant is permitted judicious chance to be free pending trial. A judge then determines if the defendant qualifies for a bond. If so the defendant must pay the amount of money or put up property with the court in order to be released. The second category is those defendants who are serving sentences for their crimes. Offenders are given active jail time (behind bars) or some alternative to jail. The judge determines which of these two general categories of sentences to impose. A judge typically contemplates the primary goals of sentencing which are retribution, deterrence and rehabilitation. Retribution is also thought of as a Just Deserts. The defendant deserves to suffer this penance for what he/she did. Deterrence has two elements. 1. Specific deterrence, which makes that specific offender from perpetrating future crimes. 2. General deterrence shows a standard to others. The theory is that people will know what sentence was imposed with another defendant and will expectantly choose not to commit crimes. Rehabilitation comprises a wide