The Most Significant Changes Made:
David Salinas
University of Maryland

The Most Significant Changes Made
Since 1978 the approximately of prisoners in our correction department was about 307,276. Since then there has 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 confidence in them when they are placed back in the world. Alternative programs for prisoners to have will only affect the next choice they make in life. There has been