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State Prisons

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Submitted By Bheard29
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The State Prison System
Brandon Heard
CJA/204
04/28/2014
Instructor: Rudy Pichardo

For decades, state prisons have been heavily populated to the point where there is not enough resources and staff to successfully manage and control the inmate population. Although there has been a decline in the population of state prisons over the last few years, there’s still a need to build more prisons and hire more correctional officers throughout the United States. According to a report published by Bureau of Justice (2014) “based on data collected by the end of 2012, describes the third consecutive year of decline of prison population in state prisons, but an increase in the number of federal prisoners. The U.S. prison population declined for the third consecutive year in 2012, from a high of 1,615,487 inmates in 2009 to 1,571,013 at yearend 2012. The U.S. imprisoned 27,770 fewer prisoners (down 1.7%) at yearend 2012 than at yearend 2011. The federal prison population increased by 1,453 prisoners in 2012 (up 0.7%), while the state prison population declined by 29,223 prisoners (down 2.1%).” (2014). From 2007 to 2011 Texas, California, and Florida had the highest amount of in-mates per state while North Dakota had the fewest (1,423). Statistics show that inmates that are released back into society and they have not committed any crimes within 4 years of being released, the chances of them going back to prison isn’t any hire than a regular citizen. State law officials are cracking down on crime by issuing longer sentencing for repeat offenders and harsher punishments for criminals. These new disciplinary laws have deterred crimes from being committed and also stopped criminals from wanting to commit crimes again. According to Inmate Classified (2014) “Since the beginning of realignment, which also eliminated the return to prison for parole violations, the

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