...An Overview of Federal Prisons Stephen Hayden CRJ 101: Intro to Criminal Justice Post University 4/19/15 Abstract Federal Prisons in the United States have evolved since 1930. The United States Federal Prisons range in security levels to house inmates that have been incarcerated on a federal level. Based upon the security level in a facility, inmates are given more freedom and have lower staff to inmate ratios. Inmates are required to work so long as their health is cleared, and some prisons offer inmate labor that can contribute to them returning to society. Prisoners are required to have their basic needs met while housed in a federal correction facility, which includes education, health care, and religious demeanor. While federal prisons are trying to maintain standards they face issues such as overcrowding, which can largely effect how the facilities are ran. Recommendations to overcome overcrowding and better facilitate a prisoners release to society will be provided. History of Prisons in the United States “Pursuant to Pub. L. No. 71-218, 46 Stat. 325 (1930), the Bureau of Prisons was established within the Department of Justice and charged with the "management and regulation of all Federal penal and correctional institutions." This responsibility covered the administration of the 11 Federal prisons in operation at the time.” (Federal Bureau of Prisons, n.d.). Since correctional facilities were mandated they have grown and evolved to this current day, and still...
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...Re-Entry and Its Effects: Institutional and Post Release Community Corrections, CRJ 341 Jonathan L. Kaiser Abstract Reentry is a challenge many offenders face once they are incarcerated and released into society. The term “reentry’” is a synonym for return and is defined as the act of going back to a prior place, location, situation or setting. Prison re-entry refers to the transition of offenders from prisons or jails back into the community. The concept of life in society is an important part of any reintegration of institutionalized people, including people who have been incarcerated for committing a crime. The institutionalization of a population leads to isolation, segregation and detachment of the elements of a company defining the basis of citizenship. Although individuals often returning to the community focus more on the choice of where they dwell, their long-term success in society is more likely to be dependent on the social roles they have chosen to play, to the extent that they will engage in the community and they have been prepared for this purpose during their incarceration or institutionalization. Reentry can help reduce recidivism as well as assist those who have been previously incarcerated to begin leading law abiding lives once released into society. However, overtime the importance of prisoner reentry has been drastically lowered with less emphasis on helping those to prepare for their release and with post release community integration. As...
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...The U.S. Department of Justice, the Office of Justice Program states that more than 650,000 ex-offenders are released annually from a state or federal prison. The Department of Justice has implemented a re-entry program; this is when offenders make a transition from prisons and/or jails. The cost of housing an inmate in a federal or a state correctional facility is approximately $20,000 to $25,000 per year. The re-entry population consists all individuals that are returning to society who have been convicted of a criminal offense. These individuals have served time in a federal, state, or local level. Research outlines an effective correctional intervention maintains resources should focus on high risk offenders. Ex-offender are less likely to retain gainful employment, they are less educated, and they have a higher risk of substance abuse and mental health issues. Many of the prison reentry programs varies in methodology, range and scope; however, the best programs according to research are reentry programs that begin during incarceration phase and continues through the reintegrating phase. The United States government needs to be responsible for assisting ex-offenders in becoming a viable and successful candidate in society. These...
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...Plummer AJS/502 The way our society is set up it is expected for the criminal justice system to either punish or rehabilitate an individual that commits a crime. Punishment is a condition to refer to any change that occurs after a behavior that reduces the likelihood that that behavior will occur again in the future. Rehabilitation is a treatment and training to an offender so that he or she is made capable of returning to society. There are differences between the effectiveness of punishment compared with the effectiveness of rehabilitation of convicted offenders in prison and under community supervision. Punishment and rehabilitation both are effective with the deterrence of crime, effects on victims and offenders, society and the fiscal effect on society. Deterrence Deterrence is the act of preventing a particular act or behavior from happening. In the criminal justice system deterrence is used to prevent an individual from committing a future crime. Punishment can be an effective deterrence when an individual is sent to jail. Prison is a form of punishment. Prison is a temporary solution while the offender is incarcerated. The highest form of punishment in the criminal justice system is capital punishment. The death penalty is used to deter people from committing crimes. Capital punishment is defined as a form of putting one to death because of a crime a person has committed. The seriousness of the crime determines the punishment. In a mitigating circumstance a sentence...
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...The Effect of Correctional Education On Post Relief Employment and Recidivism (A 5-year follow-up study in the state of Indiana) In the journal “The Effect of Correctional Education On Post Relief Employment and Recidivism” Susan Lockwood, (Department of Correction Indianapolis) says that: “research revealed that prisoners, if they have no job or education that they would get out of jail and most likely come right back to prison. The Indiana Dept. of Corrections it examined the effect they did a study showed that in a five-year length of 6651 prisoners, they did a study on how education and post release employment on returning to prison, in order to see, if offenders would come back to prison, if they could not find and jobs. The study showed that offenders that didn’t get a high school diploma would come back to prison and it also showed that younger offenders would come back to prison too if they have not got a high school diploma. The tendency to relapse into an earlier unwelcomed type of conduct, especially crime rate among offenders who had a college education was lower than the offender who had below high school level. prison rehabilitation benefitshttp://www.emich.edu/library/ http://cad.sagepub.com/content/58/3/38 “Sex Offenders Face Extended Treatment” The journal article,”Sex Offenders Face Extended Treatment” Attorney General William Sorreal wanted to make violent sexual offenders do a psychological evaluation, before they get out of prison and for them...
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...Prison Term Policy Recommendation Proposal Throughout criminal justice, laws have been modified for the purpose of ensuring the protection of the citizens of the United States of America. A person who commits a crime will receive punishment and will be prosecuted under the court of law. Prison policies have been written to assist the court in sentences according to a specific crime. The policies are usually to keep criminals in prison, and to deter further criminal activities. Those convicted of a crime may face a longer sentence than a person who is currently serving time for the same crime because of the changes to prison policies. Therefore, the prison policy of convicted armed robbery is under review and must be voted on, which voting for bill to pass can sometimes have mix reviews. Robbery occurs when property from a person, place, or bank is taken by force. Armed robbery is using a type of weapon to take possession of something, which results as more of a serious crime than robbery. According to "Armed Robbery Charges" (2010), “Armed robbery is the taking of said property, but with the use of a firearm or other taking of said property, but with the use of a firearm or other weapon. Just by including a weapon in a particular robbery crime, a robbery can be viewed with a lot more seriousness” (Para. 2). Even if the person who committed the robbery mentions a weapon or uses a fake weapon can still be charged as committing armed robbery, and the crime is considered...
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...considered one of the most powerful and influential countries in the world boasts the highest “rehabilitation” rate in the world. The staggering part remains that not only do we have the highest prison population but our incarceration rate continues to grow as our creativity or desire to solve this problem continues to stagnate. One of the major issues when researching incarceration rates is the obvious elevated rate of young African-American males that are sentenced. While the percentage of African-American incarcerated males is extremely high the length of their sentences are shockingly elevated compared to the majority of population in the United States. “One in every nine African-American males aged 25-29 were in prison or jail in 2009, compared to one in twenty-seven Latino males and one in sixty white males in the same age group, according to the Sentencing Project”. ("State of Young America," 2009, para. 11) The question currently being dealt with in the United States is how do we accommodate all of these prisoners? Our countries answer has been quite simple, to build more prisons or as some would sugarcoat it, “rehabilitation facilities”. The correct question we should be asking is, why we have so many African-American prisoners, and why do they keep returning to prisons soon after release. These are supposed to be considered rehabilitation facilities? Exactly what is the goal for preparing these prisoners upon release? In looking for trends one would look no...
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...In response to “Raising Babies in Prison” Supporting the Bond Between Inmates and Their Newborns Gives These Families a Better Start by Abbie Quillen in the YES! Magazine, Winter 2011, I think there are both positive and negative points about this type of program. At first thought, I was all for the idea of mothers raising their babies in prison with them. After sitting and thinking about it, I can see more ways this program may not be the best option. A benefit of allowing the mothers to raise their child while in prison is that the mothers could change their ways or get rid of bad habits if accepted into this program. In the article, Erika Freeman was on drugs and couldn’t stop using them even knowing she was pregnant. After her baby was born, she enrolled “in therapy, and taking courses on parenting, infant development, and healthy relationships” (Quillen 2). Erika...
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...Criminal rehab also helps in solving the issue of overcrowding in many prisons. The best rehabilitation programs for prisoner will not only be helpful for the criminal but also the society at great. Many people say that prisoners can’t be reformed and whatever punishment they get for their crimes, irrespective of that they always return to their old habits. After surveying it has been seen that after undergoing rehabilitation programs, many prisoners are reforming and returning to normal life. Despite its barbaric origins in the medieval dungeon and torture chamber, since the late 18th century prisons have combined elements of punishment with elements of rehabilitation. In 1779 the British Government passed the Penitentiary Act, which made the rehabilitation of criminals a function of all prisons. Since then, while imprisonment has remained the central form of punishment in the criminal justice system, the emphasis on correction rather than punishment has steadily increased. Rehabilitation techniques vary according to the nature of the offender, the type of offence committed, and the institution in question. Techniques vary from educational and vocational training to help the offender learn a skill for use outside the prison, to psychological rehabilitation, dealing with various problems the individual offender may experience. Drug-addicted prisoners can also receive treatment for their condition in some prisons....
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...less regulated by Angel Island. Angel Island provided military protection to the citizens, but treated the incoming immigrants with disrespect. For example, it is documented that “During the Civil War, the island was fortified to defend San Francisco from the potential attack of Confederate ships entering the bay.”(www.hps.gov) Furthermore, Angel Island had effect on World War II, “When world war II began Fort McDowell became part of the San Francisco port of embarkation … More than 200,000 soldier were shipped to the Pacific Theater of operation through Fort McDowell.” (angelisland.org) These services provided by Angel Island showed its effort to protect the citizens. Alternatively, Angel Island treated the noncitizens with impoliteness, this is show through Heungshan’s poem engraved on the walls, “There are tens of thousands of poems on these wall,they are all cries of suffering and sadness. The day I am rid of this prison and become successful.I must remember this chapter once existed. I must be frugal in my daily needs” (www.citel.org) Similarly, an anonymous poem writes, “America has power but justice. In prison we were victimized as if we were guilty. given no opportunity to explain, it was really brutal.” Both immigrants expressed their sorrow through poetry and claimed they were treated like prisoners at the immigration center. The citizen were treated with respect while the aliens were treated as prisoners. The West Coast’s diversity of the population was dependent...
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...black men, more than 2,700 are imprisoned” (Morsy). While incarceration affects African Americans, it also as equally important, if not more with parents. The mass incarceration of parents impacts the influence on the children of those being detained. According to prevention researchers Jane Waldfogel and Elizabeth Johnson, the number of parents with children in prison had doubled, “Approximately 600,000 children had a parent in state...
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...Reentry Programs Frequently we see news reports publicizing the overcrowding in Maryland prisons. Since 1966 prisoner levels have increased from 5,117 to 22,500 in 2011, with over 40% being repeat offenders (Maynard, 2010, p. 4). The cycle of criminals committing crimes, going to jail and returning to communities with little or no chance to get a job is a part of the problem. The foregone mindset that prisons were just for punishment has past. Focus now is on rehabilitation for offenders “so they can lead productive lives and contribute to their communities” (Zoukis, 2017, para. 2). Recidivism impacts communities in various ways such as; social impact of communities, family impact of parents incarcerated, and fiscal impacts of costs of incarceration...
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...* Reiman starts from the eminently reasonable query "Why aren't all human acts that hurt others punished equally as crimes?" He examines corporate crime, for example, finding that almost twice as many people are killed each year by preventable accidents or illnesses which take place on the job than are killed by "violent crime" as defined by the mass media. Concrete decisions are made which result in those deaths-all having to do with the bottom line-though those who make those decisions are rarely punished as criminals. * Reiman looks at what functions prisons serve in our society and who this benefits. By only punishing individual violent crimes and individual property crimes, the criminal justice system works to make the poor seem scary and violent. "The value of this to those in positions of power," he writes, "is that it deflects the discontent and potential hostility of Middle America away from the classes above them and toward the classes below them." (emphasis in original.) This creates a distorted image of what hurts people, and in so doing allows people to keep getting hurt. To continue this process, the media endlessly feeds back images of the poor as criminally violent. * Reiman calls this process the "Pyrric defeat" theory: instead of the "Pyrric victory," in which one ostensibly wins though at great costs, with the Pyrric defeat one keeps losing, but in the loss finds enough benefit to actually be winning. "The failure of the criminal justice system...
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...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 time, will greatly benefit from the tools supplied...
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...A Look at Racial Disparity in the United States Prison System Micah O’Daniel Institutional Corrections 2/22/11 Racial inequality in the American criminal justice system has a strong effect of many realms of society such as the family life, and employment. Education and race seem to be the most decisive factors when deciding who goes to jail and what age cohort has the greatest percentage chance of incarceration. Going to prison no longer affects just the individual who committed the crime. Instead, the family and community left behind gain a new burden by one individual's actions. The United States still has a large disparity between Whites and Blacks and now a growing Hispanic population. This racial disparity in the educational system, job sector, and neighborhoods have all contributed to the booming prison population in the latter part of the 20th century which has only continued to widen in the 21st century. At the end of 2006, the Bureau of Justice released data that stated that there were 3,042 black male prisoners per 100,000 black males in the United States, compared to 1,261 Hispanic male prisoners per 100,000 Hispanic males, and 487 white male prisoners per 100,000 white males (USDOJ, 2008). The likelihood of black males going to prison in their lifetime is 16% compared to 2% of white males and 9% of Hispanic males (USDOJ, 2008). Other social factors can be linked to the racial inequality in the criminal justice system such as socioeconomic status, the environment...
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