...The Intellectual Freedom Manual states that imprisoned people "deserve access to information, to literature, and to a window on the world" (Prisoners' Right to Read: An Interpretation of the Library Bill of Rights, 2010). It also states that having access to this information is essential for the transition back into society after release from prison. Prison libraries serve those who are incarcerated within federal, state, and local institutions. The history of reading within prison can be traced back to the late 1700's and early 1800's when mostly male prisoners were provided with religious material to review in order to reflect on the their actions and repent. Current prison libraries offer services that teach, guide, entertain, and also provide a link to home. At the end of 2014, there was an estimated 6,851,000 people in the adult correction system in the United States (Giaze, Kaebe, Minton, & Tsoutis, 2015). Nationwide literacy statistics show that more than 60% of all incarcerated individuals are functionally illiterate (Literacy Statistics, n.d.). Prison libraries are an important tool in providing services to this underserved population. Prison Literacy In 1994, the U.S. Department of Education presented the findings of a survey regarding literacy within the prison system (Haigler,...
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...not I agree with "should women who are pregnant be incarcerated?" And "should mothers in prison be allowed to keep their babies with them?". Also my I will talk about who takes care of the children of the incarcerated women, and when the mothers go to prison who is responsible for the children left behind. Mothers being allowed bring their babies into prison while they are incarcerated can go two ways, there are pros and cons to having the babies in prison. I think that if this was allowed, other inmates that have a problem with that mother have an opportunity to hurt that mothers child. If they get into a heated argument the other inmates could try to seriously injure the baby or even try to kill the baby. Also if mothers were allowed to have their babies in prison, the prison system would have to spend money on a separate facility for the babies to stay, something like a day care so that the mothers can always come visit their children when they are allowed to. Another thing with women being allowed to have their babies in prison is the humiliation that child would have to live through growing up when they no longer live in the prison. They would have to deal with people calling them a prison baby thinking that they have no outside skills like they were the ones who were serving the time in prison. Also the children would miss out on a normal life because of all the strict rules that they would have to go by in prison even though they are not the criminals. The good things...
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...government officials within each state. In this research I hope to find out those community corrections has more to offer than incarceration. In conclusion incarceration is not the right way but community corrections will be. Community Corrections or Incarceration Table of Contents Abstract Introduction Background on Community Corrections Background on Incarceration Effectives of Community Corrections Effectives of Incarceration Programs dealing with Community Corrections Programs while Incarcerated Theory Interview with Mr. Sharron Wilson Result Reference Page Community Corrections or Incarceration Introduction Community Corrections is a better solution than incarceration because it offers many different alternative programs for several different types of offenders. Incarceration also offers similar programs that will help offenders while incarcerated. In this research I found out that there are many different things concerning community corrections programs that lead up to incarceration. Community Corrections offers a normal life opposed to incarceration. Community Corrections still the individual time to seat and think of more ways of getting in trouble. Incarceration on the other hands is...
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...for removal of persons who commit acts against society as a whole has been a part of human nature. However, is it possible to reintroduce these people back into society and have them be an active and appropriate member of society? I have chosen to examine whether or not religious affiliations while incarcerated assist in the rehabilitation and lack of re-offense upon release. This area deserves additional research, after this study, due to the fact that about 5.6 million, about one out of every thirty-seven people are incarcerated in the United States (NCIS). If researchers can find a more effective way to reduce the level of recidivism; this in turn will decrease the number of incarcerated United States citizens and allow the governmental appropriation to be allocated to other needs. The following study, Religiousness and Post-Release Community Adjustment in the United States, 1990-1998, will be used to determine these three hypotheses: (1) that men with low self-esteem will regularly attend religious services, during their incarceration period. (2) This study will be used to test whether men that do not attend religious services while incarcerated are more likely to re-offend once being released from prison. (3) This study will test a sample of people incarcerated on drug charges. Specifically, whether inmates incarcerated on drug...
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...health. These effects include the constant scrutiny of the former prisoners and their family, the possibility of parents succumbing to the prison way of solving problems with violence, and the effects from contact with the emotions of other families with inmates regardless if the child has a parent incarcerated or not. Communities that have many former inmates living within them are also affected financially. Due to the fact that former prisoners commonly have problems finding a job, they are often stuck with a low socioeconomic status, unemployment, and unstable housing. The previously incarcerated also affect the political influence of their community due to that fact that some states permanently disallow felons to vote. This also decreases...
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...Essay – Advocating for Adults incarcerated Human rights are for every human; Prisoners are human too. A prisoner is deprived of the human right of liberty though? Essay – Advocating for Adults incarcerated Human rights are for every human; Prisoners are human too. A prisoner is deprived of the human right of liberty though? CHCAD603A – Undertake Systems Advocacy CHCAD603A – Undertake Systems Advocacy Human rights are for every human; Prisoners are human too. A prisoner is deprived of the human right of liberty though? Where is the line when they are deprived of one are they deprived on any other human rights directly or indirectly? This essay explores the issues and basic human rights of an adult who is incarcerated and an analysis of structural, political and social factors which play their part in maintaining discrimination against this group and how they are discriminated against. Issues which affect adults in prison and how these affect the individual, community, society and government policy with examples of issues that have changed and how advocacy has been used to create change. The introduction of policies that have arisen as a result of identified issues and how they relate to Human rights will be another focus in this essay. There is a “Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners” guidelines which are an adaption to the Universal Human Rights charter specifically for those who are incarcerated. An example of this is rule 57 “Imprisonment and other...
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...much control over their lives nor do they have control or an influence on the people around them and their actions. It is sad that at such a young age they might experience one or both of their parents going to jail or prison. One might think that the child is not affected by the removal of one or both parents from their lives as long as they still have someone to care for them but that is not true. Children with one or both parents in jail or prison are extremely affected emotionally, academically, and socially. Today prisons are overcrowded and over two million male and female Americans are in jail or prison. Two thirds of those people incarcerated are parents. Approximately two million children are separated from their mom or dad because of incarceration. These children suffer from poverty, inconsistency in caregivers, separation from siblings, reduced education, increased risk for substance abuse, alcoholism and incarceration themselves. Furthermore, in midyear 2007 it was estimated that 52% of state inmates and 63% of federal inmates reported having about 1,706,600 children under the age of 18. That number of children account for 2.3% of the U.S. resident population under 18 years of age. From 1991 to 2007 the number of parents in...
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...The disparate number of minorities in prison populations is a concern for many who believe this disproportion is due to a systematic bias in the judicial system. While many factors may contribute to this overwhelming discrepancy, I contend that the disparate number of minority populations in prison is an accurate portrayal of how crime is committed in the United States. In order to understand the cause of this disparity, I will delve into the arrest rates and sentencing statistics that attempt to show why minorities are incarcerated at a higher rate, and why they're incarcerated for longer periods of time, than their white counterpart. These two focal points, arrest rates and sentencing statistics, I believe, are the best for gathering data, considering it is where the justice system both begins and ends. Though many may think that there is a racial bias concerning the disparate number of minorities in prison working against minorities, an article entitled, “Are Blacks and Hispanics Disproportionately Incarcerated Relative to Their Arrests?” provides impressive data to oppose this claim. This article boasts being one of the first studies to include the Hispanic ethnicity in their data, which other studies omitted from, or never incorporated into, their findings, making this study much more reliable in terms of determining the cause of the referenced disparity, and more accurate in comparing the races involved. The disparity in prison populations, according to this article...
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...Introduction The prison system in America has been a constant issue of mass-incarceration, a lack of rehabilitation, and a rate of reentry that far exceeds that of any other nation, yet this problem’s escalation has done little to bring it to the platform of reformation. The prison system has cost American taxpayers billions of dollars, and a majority of these citizens are completely unaware of the needlessness of the costs with which they are burdened. With 2.2 million people incarcerated in the U.S., Americans cannot afford to continue to turn a blind eye to the economic issues presented by the current prison system (Council of Economic Advisors 3). Due to prison growth, an increasing incarceration rate, and a lack of rehabilitation and...
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...been about an average of 6,100 inmates in our prison systems a year, at the end of the fiscal year 2012 we had 1,571,013 personal incarcerated in the prisons population. The numbers has increased dramatically resulting in less space for the more offense crimes. The data shows that 7 in every 10 inmates are incarcerated any where from five years or less. With the large amounts of inmates being incarcerated all offenses have been subjected to mandatory minimum sentences. With the increasing of our prisons and being overcrowded the facilities have less prison guards which leads to more inmate activity. With the prison facilities being they way they have been for the last couple of decades prison counts have dropped the last 6 years resulting in a decrease by 1.7 percent a year. The reason we have had the decrease the last couple of years was due to a Supreme Court ordering to relieve prison overcrowding. Natasha Frost said, “This is the beginning of the end of mass incarceration.” Eight states in the United States have decrease their numbers of incarcerated by 1000 or more, and the other half of the United States have shown signs of decreasing numbers slowly. States like Texas have put money into other programs like treatment facilities, interventions and diversion programs, resulting in saving taxpayers dollars. The noticeable saving showed results in other places like parole failures being down 39 percent. Showing incarcerated prisons there is hope on the outside and will only build...
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...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 a result, the shortage of reentry programs and limited responsibility of probation or parole to assist in re-entry; the rate at which people return to prison or jail is...
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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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...Mary Montes CJS 230 – Gerry Norris November 27, 2011 University of Phoenix Online – Axia College There was a perplexing problem in the early 1800’s because the rate of women incarcerated was much lower than the rates of women incarcerated today. In reality women’s prisons did not exist, therefore the jails often treated women the same as they did the men, as well the women were punished the same way the men were “with the exception that pregnant women were often spared punishment until after they had given birth” (Foster, 2006, pg. 32). Most women incarcerated were because of prostitution and stealing. Foster also states that women incarcerated were generally mixed with the makes and they were supervised by males. (Foster 2006, pg. 32). According to Foster this began to change when Elizabeth Gurney Fry took a visit to Newgate Prison in 1813. Gurney Fry organized the Association for the Improvement of the Female Prisoners on 1817. In 1863, the Detroit House of Correction was opened. This facility had a unit separated for the women, and there were female guards in this unit. In today’s society, the female prisons are much like the male prisons. They operate with increased security concerns, and there are special housing units for the disorderly. While there was a movement to improve the prisons for women there were also reformers who were working hard to help reform the laws for children. In that era children who committed crimes were treated like the adults who committed...
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...Prisons were established many years ago as a punishment for people convicted of crimes, usually felonies. It’s a place where your freedom, movements, privacy, and access to basically everything is restricted. You’re told when you can eat, when you can sleep, when you can shower, and when you can use the bathroom. You are confined to an eight by six-foot cell, surrounded by concrete walls, sleeping on a metal bed tray with a thin pad. If prison conditions weren’t already bad enough, imagine living with 40,000 other inmates in a facility that was built with a capacity to house 32,000 inmates. Overcrowding in the U.S. corrections system has become an increasing problem in both state and federal prisons, with most facilities operating at more than 100 percent capacity. According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics, there was an estimated 1.51 million prisoners in state and local correctional facilities at the...
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...The United States of America has the highest incarceration rate in the world. America holds 5% of the world’s population, yet it houses 25% of the world’s prisoners (Walmsley 2013). The approximate amount of spending on our nations prisoners is 74 billion dollars, annually (Silver 2014). With the cost of rising incarceration in the U.S. and climbing recidivism rates, it is more apparent than ever that the American Prison Industrial Complex (“PIC”) is in great need of reform (Wagner 2014). The PIC enforces a recidivism cycle in which more than 50% of prisoners return to prison less than 3 years after release, thus being referred to by the PEW Research Center as “The Revolving Door of America’s Prisons” (2011). Not only is this cycle inflicting...
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