It Is Often Stated That Prison Does Not Work Because of the High Recidivism Rates. Why Do You Think the Prison Population Has Increased so Much in the Last Ten Years?

As of 2015, 2.7% of adults in the United States were under correctional control, the lowest rate since 1994, however that is still roughly 6.7 million adults (Kaeble & Glaze, 2016). While the correctional population has declined, correctional facilities in the United States are still grossly overcrowded, with many facilities at or surpassing capacity. A report in 2010 by the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation showed that on average, facilities were at 175% capacity (Brown, 2010). However, as of midnight on October 31st, 2017 the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation reported that their facilities, on average, were 132% occupied (Brown, 2017). Not only is prison overcrowding a burden on the facilities themselves, but also on the inmates. Prison overcrowding, that is, housing more inmates than the facility can humanely facilitate (Haney, 2006), places a strain on all resources throughout the correctional facility, including on the healthcare that’s offered, educational programs, and most dramatically on the physical space available to house inmates (Ekland-Olson, 1983).

prisons, State and Federal, is rapidly increasing as a result of incarceration being used as

Recidivism has caused some changes in offender characteristics, such as their arrest rates. The overall rate of recidivism has decreased slightly . Recent findings have found that California experienced a drop in the return-to-custody, but that it is recently has begun to increase . This could be a sign that the realignment is ineffective, or this could a normalization of the rate due to the influx of released prisoners. Following that it is found that released offenders arrested within a year has declined slightly, but the population that is arrested multiple has increased . The multiple arrests could be the result of having more time on the street. There are higher conviction rates, which suggested that prosecutors are becoming more efficient. In result, prisoners with multiple convictions has increased. The evidence would suggest that the inmates are not committing more

Over the last decade the prison population in the United States has increased but the total admissions has decreased. In 2004, the national statistics for the prison population showed 1,497,100 persons to be incarcerated from Federal Institutions to State Institutions. Ten years later in 2014, the prison population increased to 1,562,525. This increase in population is not as dramatic when it comes to comparing 2004 and 2014. However, comparing 2014 to 1978 there is a tremendous increase in population, the total population in 1978 was 307, 276. From the war on drugs to the increase numbers of homicides, in 36 years we have incarcerated over one million additional people. In one year, the justice system admitted 631,

Recidivism can be defined as the "reoccurrence of criminal behavior. Indicators of criminal behavior are re-arrests, re-convictions, and reincarcerations" (Maxfield & Babbie, 2006).

“The imprisonment boom that began in the late 1970s has swelled the state and federal prison system to more than 1.4 million prisoners.  Adding those

Now that the dramatic rise in the U.S. prison population is clearly established, the next question is to address the reasons for this extreme increase. Three of the most common explanations for this occurrence is the passage of new federal sentencing guidelines, the enactment of numerous state “three strikes” laws, and the increased ability to pay for incarceration.

Figure 2 shows recent and projected overcrowding levels in the state prison system based on the scheduled completion of all authorized prisons. As shown in the figure, prison overcrowding increased from about 140 percent in June 1983 to around 180 percent in June 1990 and has remained fairly close to that level over the last four years as additional prisons have been opened. Based on the CDC's fall 1994 population projections, unless more prisons are built, overcrowding in the prisons will increase significantly over the next five years and will reach 256 percent in mid-1999 nearly three inmates for each space designed to

According to the graph shown above, federal and state combined in 1939 increased to a high of 137. After this period the imprisonments rate remained stable until 1972; when the rate rapidly increased annually by 6 to 8 percent through 2000. Years later, the rate of incarceration reached the peak of 506 per 100,000 people in 2007 and 2008. In 2012, “the imprisonment rate of 471 per 100,000 was still 4.3 times the historical average of 110 per 100,000. If the numbers in jail are added, the incarceration rate totaled 767 per 100,000 in 2007 and 707 per 100,000 in 2012” (Glaze and Herberman, 2013). In other words, the tremendous growth of the penal population is an astounding number of people behind bars. The U.S prisons and jails, by 2012, held

Combating recidivism and the continuously growing prison population has been an ongoing problem that has been steadily draining federal, state, and local budgets. In a vain attempt to reduce recidivism the criminal justice system made sentences harsher, which in turn lead to more prisons being built to house the booming prison population. For almost 30 years’ researchers have sought answers for why so many criminals return to crime within five years of being released. These

The United States is a country of inmates. With over 2.3 million Americans behind bars, it equates to almost one in every 100 Americans (Hunt, 2011). The United States makes up a little more than four percent of the world’s population. However, America has more inmates than the thirty five leading European countries combined. In 2013, the U.S. admitted 9,000 more sentenced prisoners than they released that year. (Carson, 2014). The U.S prison population has more than doubled over the last fifteen years, causing an extreme overpopulation and financial burden without any immediate solutions.

A study conducted by (Langan & Levin in 2002) revealed that out of all the inmates that were released from prison in 1994, two-thirds of those inmates were rearrested within three years. The study also showed that out of the two-thirds that were rearrested, one-quarter of those were re-incarcerated. A more recent study showed recidivism rates as high as 80 percent (The Sentencing Project,

The article, If You Build It, They Will Fill It: The Consequences of Prison Overcrowding Litigation by Joshua Guetzkow and Eric Schoon looks over the consequences of U.S. prison overcrowding litigation. This article tries to gain a better understanding of overcrowding limitation’s impact on U.S. prisons. The article then looks at three ways officials could have responded to overcrowding litigation: reducing prison admissions, increasing releases, and boosting spending on prison capacity. Prison crowding and incarceration rates were also affected by officials’ response to litigation. The researchers then used state level time series data from 1972 to 1996 to see if the impact of overcrowding litigation meets their expectations. Several ways were discussed that

This research paper is to explore the impact of prison overcrowding. The United States has a, what seems to be everlasting, prison overcrowding problem. Not only does the United States have this dilemma, but also many other countries have overcrowded prisons as well. Many issues need to be addressed; ways to reduce the prison populations and how to effectively reduce prison cost without jeopardizing community safety are major issues that need attention. Successfully rehabilitating inmates can play an important role in the fight to

As Clear, Cole & Reisig (2013) pointed out that toward the end of 2010, United States state and government restorative offices housed more than 1.6 million prisoners. No less than seven states are right now at 25% over limit with the most noteworthy being Alabama at 196% and nearly taken after by Illinois at 144% above greatest limit. Nineteen states altogether are working above greatest limit. In 2007, California announced a highly sensitive situation with respect to stuffed penitentiaries. And since the majority of the prisons sentences are handed to what could be termed of two types of offenders which are drug offenders and the recidivists. The tendency and the ability for the jails and prisons to be over crowded are quite certain. These areas needs much attentions for rehabilitations and probationer instances to curb certain crimes that can easily affect the society and at the same time increase gangs related issues not only in the prisons, but at the same time in our communities.