...Purpose and History Chris Souza CJA/234 May 5, 2014 Moore When you think of the purpose of prison, what comes to mind? To house some of the world’s most notorious criminals? To rehabilitate those who has seen the evil of their own ways? Or has America's melting pot of philosophies has made it difficult to manage societal institutions? Throughout this paper the discussion of how the history of prison development was established. The history of punishment for those who committed their crimes will be in focus. We will compare the Pennsylvania system and the Auburn system to each other. Finally, the impact of prison labor overtime shall be discussed. For some the purpose of prison is to protect society from criminals who intend to harm innocent civilians. For others a prison's purpose is to rehabilitate citizens who need skills to become upstanding members of society. Still others believe that a prison provides a way for criminals to be punished and therefore pay their debt to society. Within the correctional system of America there are varying degrees of incarceration. The history of punishment in corrections of prisons can be dated back as far as 1750 B.C. One of the earliest known written codes that specified different types of offenses and punishments was the Code of Hammurabi. The Code of Hammurabi was divided into sections to cover different types of offenses and contained descriptions of the punishments to be imposed to offenders. (Lych, 2014) There were five punishments...
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...Throughout the decades, studies have been conducted to address the question of whether prisons work. The prison is a system used by the State to punish criminals, which is justified by the concept of retributivism (proportional punishment) and crime reduction (Cavadino & Dignan 2007, p36; Pollock 2005, pp3-4). According to the actuarial perspective (Feeley & Simon 1992), prison works in certain circumstances, as it efficiently minimises risks to society by confining individuals of dangerous population for the purpose of social control. However, this risk-focused view of prison’s functionality is limited, as it lacks understanding of the imprisonment of vulnerable groups, since Actuarialism overlooks the cultural factors outside risk-calculations....
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...Thesis: Canada's criminal justice system, specifically laws dealing with punishment, is far superior to that of the United States Canada and the United States of America are two neighboring countries who besides the border share numerous other key aspects. Though similar in beliefs and culture the two countries are far from alike. Their legal structure particularly the penal system is one of most significant boundaries between Canada and the United States. Though not perfect, it's absolutely clear that Canada has the far more superior legal system. Unlike the United States, Canada no longer practices capital punishment which is barbaric to say the least. Furthermore Canada's belief in conjunctive punishment is better with dealing with offenders than America's consecutive punishment. Finally Canada's goal to concentrate more on rehabilitating and educating criminals is far more effective and efficient in eradicating future crime then just incarcerating them. There are two main types of law, Substantive and Procedural. Substantive law creates, defines and regulates rights and obligations of citizens; in contrast procedural law prescribes the manner to enforce rights and obligations. (Dickson) Substantive law divides into Public law which in turn breaks up into four other laws including criminal law. Criminal law outlines all the acts that are regarded as offences to society and it consists of the penal system. The penal system is comprised of sets of punishments and sentences...
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...Special Needs Criminals Alexisandra Garland CJA/234 September 21st, 2013 Jeffery Newton Special Needs Prisoner The American penal system is comprised of every element of society imaginable. There are people from all walks of life being held in one prison or another across our great country for crimes they’ve committed or allegedly committed against mankind. Be it at the state, federal or county level, the U.S. prison system does not discriminate with regards to those who are physically challenged. Be it a prisoner who is mentally challenged or one whom is confined to a wheelchair, if they have committed a crime and are found guilty of such, they will be sentenced to facility that under most circumstances are equipped to handle prisoners with special needs. Take for example the criminally insane or those suffering with various kinds of mental illness: Round about 1955 the number of mental institution experienced a drawdown of types, in that they were not building any new facilities, despite the fact that approximately forty of the existing one’s had been shut down or were scheduled to be shut down. This change prompted the prison system to take over the role of caring for mentally ill inmates. As more and more prisons grew so did the role of the prison system to care for the influx of the special needs prisoners. Prisons were able to house and care for some 45,000 prisoners including those who were mentally ill, compared to that of a mental institutions ability...
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...UNIVERSITY OF CAPE COAST THE EFFECTIVENESS OF COUNSELLING SERVICES IN GHANAIAN PRISONS: A STUDY OF ANKAFUL AND SEKONDI PRISONS. REV. FR. DUAH 2014 CHAPTER ONE INTRODUCTION Background of the Study Since ancient times till now, no clan or society has existed without crimes and offenses of some kind for which society inflicts punishments (Dobb, 1994). In pre-colonial Ghana, different traditional societies had their own various ways of meting out punishments, deterring and rehabilitating offenders and deviants. In these societies, the socialization of the people and sanctions meted out to offenders were both in accordance to the customs, values, belief systems and traditions of the people. Power and authority rested on the chiefs and traditional rulers as well as heads of clans and families to punish culprits of various offenses and offer rehabilitation services. According to The Library of Congress Country Studies (1994) there was no prison system in the traditional Ghanaian society in the colonial era and advent of western education and culture in Ghana. The Ghana Police Service was established and mandated to provide the security needs of the citizens by protecting lives and properties. The judiciary or law courts of Ghana were also given the mandate to provide fair trial and justice to offenders arranged before them and those found guilty were given various punishments ranging from fines to custodian sentences in jail to serve as a deterrent to others. In the mid-nineteenth...
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...dramatically and that movements up and down in the incarceration rate have not correlated with crime rate changes. (http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0HSP/is_1_3/ai_66678533/) Criminal activities among Americans are on a constant rise compared to other parts of the world, leading to overcrowding in prisons. The contributing factor to this notion could be strict punishments for minor crimes, some pertaining to racial profiling. According to Hernandez (March-April 2009), African Americans represent nearly half of the prison population. The “war on drugs” has made a significant impact on the prison population, particularly within the African American communities. The war on drugs is aimed at reducing the supply and demand for drugs within the United States. The program focuses on stricter punishments for those who deal drugs and for those who use them. According to research conducted by Shaw (2000), African-Americans account for about 14 percent of the nation's drug users, yet they make up 35 percent of those arrested for drug possession, 55 percent of those convicted for drug possession, and 74 percent of those sentenced to serve time. To prevent overcrowding in prison, non violent...
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...CUSTODIAL AND NON-CUSTODIAL MEASURES The Prison System Criminal justice assessment toolkit 1 UNITED NATIONS OFFICE ON DRUGS AND CRIME Vienna CUSTODIAL AND NON-CUSTODIAL MEASURES The Prison System Criminal Justice Assessment Toolkit UNITED NATIONS New York, 2006 The designations employed and the presentation of the material in this publication do not imply the expression of any opinion whatsoever on the part of the Secretariat of the United Nations, the Secretariat and Institutions of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, and the Belgian 2006 OSCE Chairmanship concerning the legal status of any country, territory, city or area or of its authorities, or concerning the delimitation of its frontiers or boundaries. This publication has not been formally edited. TABLE OF CONTENTS 1. INTRODUCTION TO THE ISSUE ..................................................................................... 1 2. OVERVIEW: GENERAL AND STATISTICAL DATA ......................................................... 5 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 3.1 3.2 4.1 4.2 4.3 4.4 4.5 4.6 4.7 5.1 5.2 5.3 5.4 5.5 5.6 6.1 6.2 6.3 6.4 6.5 6.6 6.7 6.8 7.1 7.2 OVERVIEW OF COUNTRY AND PRISON SYSTEM.............................................. 5 PRISON POPULATION ........................................................................................... 6 PROFILE OF PRISON POPULATION..................................................................... 6 QUALITY OF DATA ......................................
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...A Critical Perspective on Prison Privatization April 6, 2015 A Critical Perspective on Prison Privatization Topic Statement: “Is the privatization of prisons for profit an ethical practice?” The topic of a country privatizing areas of industry is far from a novel idea, especially since the rise of capitalism. With the United States being widely considered the father of capitalism, it is almost expected to see the privatization of a key component of its judicial system, prison, becoming more and more common. Although the underlying function of a prison as a means of social reform has remained constant since its inception in 1750 BCE with the Babylonian Empire, externalities are beginning to influence a change in the governing bodies of penitentiaries (Roberts, 2006). With governments and taxpayers seeing the opportunities for cost savings, countries throughout the world are beginning to employ private operating models for their penitentiaries, with the U.S. being the primary driver of this change (Trivedi, 2014). Framework of the Issue A change in the operating sovereign of a prison, from federal to private, is controversial enough that the effects of this privatization have garnered the title of the Prison-Industrial Complex. The complex is a scholarly attempt to explain the intertwining of the profit-driven agendas of private prison companies and the correlated expansion of the US inmate population. Although cost savings for the government...
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...Panopticism Summary Foucault begins with a description of measures to be taken against the plague in the seventeenth century: partitioning of space and closing off houses, constant inspection and registration. Processes of quarantine and purification operate. The plague is met by order. Lepers were also separated from society, but the aim behind this was to create a pure community. The plague measures aim at a disciplined community. The plague stands as an image against which the idea of discipline was created. The existence of a whole set of techniques and institutions for measuring and supervising abnormal beings brings into play the disciplinary mechanisms created by the fear of the plague. All modern mechanisms for controlling abnormal individuals derive from these. Foucault then discusses Jeremy Bentham's Panopticon, a building with a tower at the center from which it is possible to see each cell in which a prisoner or schoolboy is incarcerated. Visibility is a trap. Each individual is seen but cannot communicate with the warders or other prisoners. The crowd is abolished. The panopticon induces a sense of permanent visibility that ensures the functioning of power. Bentham decreed that power should be visible yet unverifiable. The prisoner can always see the tower but never knows from where he is being observed. The possibility that the panopticon is based on the royal menagerie at Versailles is raised. The Panopticon allows on to do the work of a naturalist: drawing...
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...justice and security statistics. It is based on administrative data for 2007 and 2008 from the Mauritius Police Force (MPF), the Judiciary, the Mauritius Prison Services (MPS) and the Probation and After-care Service. It is to be noted that the criminal justice system is very complex, involving police, prosecution, judiciary, prison and probation and after-care service as well as the socio-economic situation in which crimes occur. These statistics would be necessary to fully interpret the figures in this ESI. It has not however been possible yet to include any figures on prosecutions which will be developed and added in forthcoming issues as soon as they are available. Statistics from victimisation surveys are also not included in this ESI. These statistics are not collected on an annual basis; the latest available ones refer to years 2004 & 2007 and have already been published in the previous issue of this ESI. To assist in interpreting the figures, a reference chart of the flow through the criminal justice system is included at Annex I and a glossary of terms used at Annex II. 2. Statistical Notes The following points should be recalled when drawing any conclusions from the figures in this publication: (a) When comparing figures it should be realised that police and judiciary figures are based on offences but prison and probation figures are based on offenders, and that many offenders are sentenced for more than one offence. (b) Offences can sometimes be reclassified...
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...found at: http://yjj.sagepub.com/content/11/2/194 Published by: http://www.sagepublications.com Additional services and information for Youth Justice can be found at: Email Alerts: http://yjj.sagepub.com/cgi/alerts Subscriptions: http://yjj.sagepub.com/subscriptions Reprints: http://www.sagepub.com/journalsReprints.nav Permissions: http://www.sagepub.com/journalsPermissions.nav Citations: http://yjj.sagepub.com/content/11/2/194.refs.html >> Version of Record - Jul 13, 2011 What is This? Downloaded from yjj.sagepub.com at Universiti Teknologi MARA (UiTM) on April 16, 2014 194 Youth Justice 11(2) alongside England and Wales and in so doing makes some invaluable comparisons and contrasts in light of the differing legal systems. Nonetheless, this does raise questions about the primacy accorded to the Scottish Sheriffs’ accounts in the second section of the book in light of the markedly different approach to ASBOs adopted in Scotland, especially where young people are concerned (pp. 121–125). The Sheriffs’ accounts clearly lend support to extant concerns about net-widening (cf. Squires and Stephen, 2005) and ASBOs were deemed ‘ineffective’ and ‘irrelevant’ for young people (p. 122). The concluding section of the book raises further controversies. University lecturers might find the reiteration of Donoghue’s unsubstantiated charge of bias in teaching about ASBOs disturbing (e.g. p. 144), for example. However, the case for ASBOs is ultimately undermined by difficulties...
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...under the influence of drugs and many drug users are sent to jail or prison. Yet if these offenders would have to attend some type of addiction consoling while incarcerated and have to continue after their release date as a stipulation of their probation they may never go back down that same path again. Drug-related crimes are often committed to obtain money or goods to sell to get money to support drug use. According to BJS national surveys, the most comprehensive information available, an estimated 17% of 1991 State prison inmates and 13% of convicted jail inmates in 1989...
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...discussing the budgetary and managerial impact that it has on future trends including law enforcement and the courts system. The criminal justice system will always be a significant part of social order. The world’s leader in incarceration is the United States. Prisons and jails operate around two philosophies of punishment vs. rehabilitation. The past tend was solitary confinement with no concern for inmate rehabilitation or any concern for the well-being of the inmates. Most of the increase has come from the changes in sentencing laws and policies, but not in the crime rates. These trends have stemmed in prison overcrowding and financial burdens on states to oblige a fast increasing penal system. The war on drugs sentencing policies resulted in an intense increase in incarceration for drug offenses. There was also the “Three Strikes and you Out” laws. Severe sentencing laws such as mandatory minimums are responsible for offenders to stay in prisons for a longer periods of time, also high recidivism rates. Woman in Federal and State prisons that have been incarcerated for drug offenses has increased. The women’s have histories of significant histories of physical, sexual abuse, HIV, and substance abuse. Even though violent crime has been coming down, the prisoners that are serving life sentences continues to grow (Carson & Sabol, 2012). With the prison populations increasing the new incentive is community corrections. Over the past decade the growth of offender populations...
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...Privatization of Prisons Introduction I am writing this memo in response to a request to analyze the benefits and disadvantages of privatized prison systems. With the present economic environment, it is important to explore all options that could reduce the state’s deficit. This research project will explore the cost benefits to the privatization of California’s prison system, in comparison to other cost saving options. It will use statistics from other states that use private prison systems, as well as federal detention facilities that are privately managed. The purpose of this analysis is to reduce spending as a whole, and to not place a financial burden on local governments. It is also important to note that prison sentences are not only a form of punishment, but also a deterrent for future criminal activity. It does not serve its purpose in its entirety when sentences are reduced due to budget inefficiencies. Findings The fiscal year, 2011-2012, has a $10,017,591,000 budget for the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation. This budget includes all adult corrections and rehabilitation operations, juvenile operations, parole operations, inmate health care, administration, and education and vocations programs (CDCR). It remains to be a difficult comparison between private enterprise and government entities due to the difference in accounting practices. Public agencies do not always include all expenses incurred at the specific agency level...
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...believes that standard professional qualifications are insufficient for capital cases. 3. The death penalty expresses a desire for vengeance—a motive too volatile and indifferent to the concept of justice to be maintained in a civilized society. The notion that revenge can stand as a motive for official policy on punishment is entirely inconsistent with a rational system of justice conducted by the state on behalf of society (Bedau 1999: 50). 4. Capital punishment is considered to be degrading to human dignity and inconsistent with the principle of the sanctity of life. The argument is that human life, having infinite value, should be respected and protected and that even murderers’...
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