...Solitary confinement is an incarceration norm in the United States and around the world, as prisoners are locked away and left to their own devices for days on end. Though this practice has mostly been commonplace and a part of the American criminal justice ethic for the better part of three centuries, some have questioned whether this is the future of criminal justice in America. Solitary confinement, it seems, has psychological effects that have previously been unknown and given this information, some argue that the practice is inhumane or in violation of the sixth amendment’s prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment. Solitary confinement breaks down the mind’s ability to function and in the process, it does long-term, often irreparable damage to prisoners. Those prisoners, many of whom are later released at the end of their sentence, are afflicted with a new mental disability as a result of their time in solitary confinement. This can have dangerous effects on communities and it can lead to higher rates of recidivism among these prisoners. Given the accumulated knowledge that the scientific community now has on the long-term effects of solitary confinement, it is clear that this practice raises ethical and practical questions. It will, in the next ten to twenty years, force various states and the federal government to choose whether they want to continue with an inhumane practice that could leave communities with a new danger that has been wholly caused by incarceration...
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...A Historical Overview of Inmate Labor in Pennsylvania: The Pioneer in United States Prison Labor http://www.pci.state.pa.us/portal/server.pt/community/history_of_pci/17812 The evolution of American prison labor is rooted in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. The Pennsylvania penal system, originating in 1682 under the leadership of William Penn, was the first state prison system to suggest the replacement of torture and mutilation as punishment for crimes with hard labor in houses of correction. Penn's intentions were not systematically executed when his penal code of 1682 was repealed. As a result, labor in penal institutions was practically non-existent in Pennsylvania during the Colonial Period. However, Penn's efforts were not futile as the penal code outlined in 1682 left a mark on the laws of Pennsylvania, and the evolution of prison labor across the nation. In 1773, the Walnut Street Jail was constructed in Philadelphia. During the early years of the Walnut Street Jail, Penn's order to establish workhouses was revived. The constitution of 1776 directed the enactment of laws establishing houses of correction for "punishing by hard labor, those who shall be convicted of crimes not capital." Legal force was added to the provision of the constitution by the law of 1786, which ordered the punishment of prisoners by "continued hard labor, publicly and disgracefully imposed." This act provided that prisoners were to be employed in workhouses and in the repairing and cleaning...
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...how it helps us today with those who choose to commit crimes. I will also cover the basis of how Constitutional given rights are upheld within the prison system itself, and how the public is involved with the goings on within the prisons. According to the article Why State Prisons by W. David Ball, state prisons in 2012 held approximately 1.3 million people which is almost twice the amount of people in county jails and more than five times the federal prison populations. This number is only estimated to go up as the years go on if left unchecked. Also according to the article, California passed policy to reform their prison and jail population problems, their state prisons now only accept violent offenders and sexual predators rather than all types of felons, with the remaining criminal elements serving their time in local jails. The state prisons began to be overpopulated due to the government taking on more and more prisoners to use as labor (road crews, ditch digging, etc;) and granted the government a flow of surplus cash as a result. That helped the economies then but is irrelevant in todays’ life, as the belief that the professional and rehabilitative power has dwindled into near oblivion. With that said, there are many who wonder whether state prisons are needed anymore, or are they a relic of the past? Prison terms were almost non-existent in the latter part of 1775, in Pennsylvania for example, there was almost no imprisonment at all, rather, they...
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...Realist movement was in the late 1800's and continued through the early 1900's. During the Realist movement, the world woke up and realized it had changed so much. Electricity, telephones, and radios were created at this time and effected how people lived. Artist became creators of cultural, for the first time in human history the Artist weren't depended on just drawing what the world looked like. They could leave the world of perfect drawing and pursue a different aspect of art. The realist movement didn't just help artist, it helped authors. Authors didn't have to write about romance, or fictional. Author could just be realistic. they did not need elaborate settings, weird/ attention grabbing stories. they wrote simple stories with extraordinary detail which made the story that much more better. Count Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy also known as Leo Tolstoy, was a Russian writer who primarily wrote novels and short stories. Tolstoy was a master of realistic fiction and is widely considered one of the world's greatest novelists. He is best known for two long novels, War and Peace (1869) and Anna Karenina (1877). Tolstoy first achieved literary acclaim in his 20s with his semi-autobiographical trilogy of novels, Childhood, Boyhood, and Youth (1852-1856) and Sevastopol Sketches (1855), based on his experiences in the Crimean War. 3 questions is another master piece that Leo Tolstoy created. The story starts out with king that wanted to know the answer to three simple questions:...
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...PRELIMINARY STATEMENT Stephen Richards respectfully submits this Memorandum regarding his re-sentencing. The purpose of this submission is to highlight pertinent developments in the lives of Mr. Richards and his family members in the four years since the Court originally imposed a sentence of 84 months imprisonment. Mr. Richards has been incarcerated for 43 months. He has earned all available “good time” credit, which brings his total time served to 49 months. Certain events since his incarceration were unanticipated at the time of sentencing, and others demonstrate Mr. Richards’ rehabilitation to an extraordinary degree. These events are described below and are fleshed out in greater detail in letters and related documents contained in a separately-bound collection of Sentencing Letters and Supporting Materials. We respectfully ask the Court to weigh these intervening developments when fixing a term of incarceration that is “no greater than necessary” to achieve the factors listed in 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a). We respectfully submit that under all the circumstances the statutory purposes of sentencing would be satisfied by a sentence of 60 months. BACKGROUND Beginning in the mid-1980s, the corporate headquarters of Computer Associates International, Inc. (“CA”) instituted a fraudulent practice of premature revenue recognition. The so-called “35-Day Month” involved keeping CA’s books open for several days after a quarterly reporting period...
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...Life Behind Bars: Women in Prison Abstract When we think of women in prison as of lately, we think of Orange is the New Black, a television show centered on a woman whom after ten years of living a relatively quiet and normal life, is sentenced to prison for transporting a suitcase full of drug money for her former girlfriend. What we fail to see is the real prison facilities that women are sentenced to for nonviolent drug and property offenses. There are two sides of women behind bars, the female offender and the female correctional officer. First, the vast majority of female prisoners are likely coerced into committing crimes for their partners and as a result have ended up behind bars. Many female offenders are incarcerated as a result of the too strict laws and policies adopted at the height of the “war on drugs.” Majority of women incarcerated in prisons and jails come from poverty ridden surroundings, where there is a lack of support from family; have experienced physical and/or sexual abuse, some having happened while as young children; and suffer from physical and mental health problems as well as substance abuse issues. The majority of women serving time who have suffered from abuse, poverty, lack of educational and vocational skills are mothers, with a vast majority of them being the sole support and caregivers for their children. Second, the female correctional officer is sometimes viewed as infiltrating a male dominated field...
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...this novel was in the works, Mailer received a letter from Jack Henry Abbott, a convict having been in jail most of his life. Abbott's letter was solely criticism that accused Mailer of not knowing what real life in prison is like, but that Abbott would do everything in his power to clarify the aspects of what violence and everyday life is like in prison. A wide array of subject matter was covered far past the basic account of "a day in the life of an prisoner". The rationale of the inmate hierarchy is displayed from the inside with a totality that would take years of research and interviews. It is clear that there is no doubt concerning the feelings Abbott has for his jailers, and the establishment they represent. He clearly expresses throughout his writings that the corrections system exists to oppress the unfortunate and underprivileged. Abbott began to talk about the fact that he was in and out of foster homes almost from the time of his birth. By the age of nine, he was already in juvenile detention centers. The downhill trend continued for Abbott as he was sent to the Utah State Industrial School for Boys at the young age of twelve. He was only released from this institution when he reached the age of eighteen. The correspondence are depictions of extraordinary events that have allegedly happened over a span of about fifteen years. Therefore, even before he became an adult, he was...
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...physician), her brother, and her doctor all concur that she needs complete rest and a cessation of her work if she is to "recover," by which they mean "appear as a normal female in a world created by and for men." Gilman is not speaking in any militant feminist terms; she merely shows how her narrator needs to work in order to feel at ease with herself and the self's potential. Instead, she is hustled off to the country into a life of enforced idleness of body and mind. Although she would have preferred a room opening on the garden, her husband consigns her to the upstairs room, a former nursery, whose major features are ancient yellow wallpaper, bars on the windows, and a huge bedstead nailed to the floor. The fact that the narrator's prison-room is a nursery indicates her status in society. The woman is legally a child; socially, economically, and philosophically she must be led by an adult--her husband; and therefore the nursery is an appropriate place to house her. The narrator's work threatens to destroy her status as a mere child by gaining her recognition in the adult world; this is reason enough for her husband to forbid her to work. Her work is, as he suggests, dangerous; but its danger is for him, not her, because it removes her from his control. The nursery, then, is an...
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...The so-called “War on Drugs,” as declared by the Nixon administration in the signing of the Comprehensive Drug Abuse Prevention and Control Act of 1970, marked the beginning of the current era of mandatory minimum sentencing, racism, privatized prisons, and a powerful constituency that profits as a result of the prohibition of drugs. Psychoactive substances have been apart of the human experience as long as humans have walked the earth. There is little hope that drug production will ever be curtailed, so long as there is a demand; a demand that has remained steady even though it has been forty years since the beginning of said war. As Judge James P. Gray from the Superior Court of Orange County has so plainly put it: “Where did this policy come from? Unfortunately I have conducted an inquiry into this and I have determined that drug prohibition laws came for reasons of racism, empire building, and ignorance.”(Booth) The War on Drugs is politically motivated as a means of profiting. One may ask them self how government can financially benefit from such policies. In fact, they benefit in a myriad of ways. The government spends an exorbitant amount of money in an attempt to combat drug production and drug usage. The U.S. government has spent over a trillion—that’s right a trillion—dollars in its attempt to eradicate the drug problem. With so much time, effort and money there should be something to show, right? Wrong. Today drugs are more prevalent, more potent and cheaper than...
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...Sentencing and Criminal Code Revision Commission was charged with developing a comprehensive structured sentencing system for the District. The Commission concluded that the District could benefit from a comprehensive structured sentencing system. Next, the Commission embarks the difficult task of creating workable sentencing guidelines for felonies. As Washington, DC follows the lead of other jurisdictions as well as an earlier effort in the District, the Commission developed two grids: one for drug cases and one for all other cases in the direction of the dominant factors in sentencing: the offense of conviction and the criminal history of the offender. The Commission also established standards for departing from the recommended prison ranges in extraordinary cases, rules for imposing concurrent or consecutive sentences, along with adjustments and exceptions to sentencing. Together, the grids, standards, rules, adjustments and exceptions form the Voluntary Sentencing Guidelines for the District of Columbia. (ACS, 2012-pg.9) The procedures that must take place following the finding of guilt before a defendant is sentenced for a felony offense are as follow: Sentencing is where the judge imposes punishment after a finding of guilty that resulted from a trial, or entry of a plea of guilty or no contest by the defendant. The judge may order the Department of Corrections to prepare a pre-sentence investigation (PSI) report and postpone sentencing until after the report has been submitted...
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...RESEARCH PAPER “Freedom from Arbitrary Detention is a Fundamental Human Right” WHAT IS DETENTION? Detention is the process when a state, government or citizen lawfully holds a person by removing their freedom of liberty at that time. This can be due to (pending) criminal charges being raised against the individual as part of a prosecution or to protect a person or property. Being detained does not always result in being taken to a particular area (generally called a detention centre), either for interrogation, or as punishment for a crime (prison) The term can also be used in reference to the holding of property, for the same reasons. The process of detainment may or may not have been preceded or followed with an arrest. The prisoners in Guantánamo Bay are for example referred to as "detainees". Detainee is a term used by certain governments and their military to refer to individuals held in custody, such as those it does not classify and treat as either prisoners of war or suspects in criminal cases. It is used to refer to "any person captured or otherwise detained by an armed force."[1] More generally, it is "someone held in custody."[2] Article 9 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights states that, "No one shall be subjected to arbitrary arrest, detention or exile." In wars between nations, detainees are referenced in the Fourth Geneva Convention. ------------------------------------------------- Indefinite Detention: -------------------------------------------------...
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...of physical weakness, though confinement and hard fare no doubt had their part in it. Its deplorable peculiarity was, that it was the faintness of solitude and disuse. It was like the last feeble echo of a sound made long and long ago. So entirely had it lost the life and resonance of the human voice, that it affected the senses like a once beautiful colour faded away into a poor weak...
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...Jail System The Prison Law of the People's Republic of China was adopted and went into force on December 20, 1994 at the 11th meeting of the Standing Committee of the Eighth National People's Congress. Regulatory Authorities The Prison Law provides that the State Council judicial administration (Ministry of Justice) supervises all prisons across the country. The Ministry of Justice has a Bureau of Prison Administration that supervises all prisons in the country. In the provinces (municipalities directly under the central government and autonomous regions), offices of justice are responsible for managing prisons in their own jurisdiction through their prison administration arms. Prisons in China are divided into two categories: Prisons incarcerating inmates who have been condemned by courts to a fixed-term sentence, life sentence or death penalty with two years reprieve. Male and female inmates are warded separately, with female wards managed by female law enforcement personnel. Prisons may also be divided into wards for felons and criminals of misdemeanour. Penitentiaries for juvenile delinquents, criminals of minor age who have been condemned by courts to a fixed-term sentence, life sentence or death penalty with two years reprieve. Special protection is extended to juvenile delinquents, with customized procedures in place to cater to their needs. Prison Setup and Staffing The Prison Law provides that the State Council judicial administration approves the establishment...
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...female incarceration rates, growing 832% from 1977 to 2007 with an astounding 4% of women in state prisons and 3% of women in federal prisons pregnant at the time of admittance (Women’s Prison Association 4). Lives are at stake. Every court decision, every judgment cast, effects more than just the individual involved. The future is dependent on how society treats the present. In order to combat the crisis, it is vital to understand its origins and its impact; from this understanding, alternatives that consider the health and well being of all involved can be formulated and delivered. The United States has less than 5% of the world’s population, but boasts the overwhelming figure of almost a quarter of the world’s prisoners (Liptak 1). With nearly 2.3 million bars, one in 100 American adults is locked up. “Criminologists and legal experts here and abroad point to a tangle of factors to explain America's extraordinary incarceration rate: higher levels of violent crime, harsher sentencing laws, a legacy of racial turmoil, a special fervor in combating illegal drugs, the American temperament, and the lack of a social safety net” (Liptak 1). Another crucial point is that U.S. sentences are longer and more harsh than the rest of the industrialized world. This is devastatingly true, especially in regards to the drug war. The shocking rise in the feminization of the U.S. prison system is linked to the punishments for non-violent offenses. The Women’s...
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...My Cousin Vinny The movie “My Cousin Vinny” is a comedy film of 1992, which is an amusing interpretation of the processes of the criminal justice system. The film depicts the procedures and processes of the court and criminal justice system. There are many things that have been depicted in the movie wrongly, but some are the correct depictions of the court proceedings and the criminal justice system. Many professionals have criticized the movie for its incorrect depiction of some of the procedures and processes. The movie taps different elements of the criminal justice system as a whole. There are countless individuals who do not realize the formalities, which go into actually being convicted for a crime. My cousin Vinny explore different aspects of these pretrial stages, criminal trials and the major actors in the process of the court hearing (Crede, 2012). There are a number of similarities as well as differences amongst what the movie has portrayed and the actual process of the criminal justice procedure which will be explored in this paper. The movie revolves around two New Yorker friends, Stan and Bill, who are traveling through Rural Alabama. These two friends make a stop on their way to buy some necessities from a shop. Immediately after they leave, another car, similar to theirs, pulls over. Two men get out of the car and kill the attendant of the store and runs away. Meanwhile, the two friends, Stan, and Bill, soon realize that they have accidently taken a tuna...
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