...Jail and Prison Response Jails in the United States serve a purpose of short-confinement for individuals. They are mainly for individuals who are awaiting their trial and possible sentence. As time has gone on, the responsibilities of jails have increased due to demand. If a person on probation or parole violates these terms they are then sent to jail. They also are the middle person and they hold people who are mentally ill, in the military, or recently convicted until it is time to transfer them to the appropriate long-term facility. This transfer includes both state and federal authorities. They also operate community based programs, home detention with electronic monitoring, and day reporting. A typical hold for a person who is sentenced to jail is less than one year (Schmalleger, 2011, "Chapter 13, Jails"). Jails play an integral role in the criminal justice system. They are facing problems with overcrowding, poor conditions (such as old and outdated buildings), and understaffing. Despite these problems, more jails are being renovated and programs are being added. Drug rehabilitation programs are being more readily available for inmates to attend. Programs aimed at daily life skills and work ethic have started being offered in many different jails to help inmates become more productive members of society and reduce the rate of recidivism. In some jails, inmates are given jobs such as a phone answering service that is done at the Los Angeles North County Correctional...
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...Ross February 27, 2017 APUSH DBQ In the beginning of the nineteenth century, Americans started to focus on the welfare of minority groups. Women’s suffrage, abolition, and asylum and prison reform became hot topics during the Second Great Awakening, a movement that took place in the early 1800s. The Second Great Awakening was headed by religious leaders who sought out changes in American society through uniting the American people (Doc. B). Due to the Second Great Awakening, reform movements were established between 1825 and 1850 to represent the changes American people sought for in the matters of slavery, suffrage, and asylum and prison reform. Nat Turner’s rebellion, occurring in 1831, changed dynamics of slavery in America....
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...Jails and Prisons CJS/200 – Foundations of the Criminal Justice System 10//2011 Dexter Williams There are four types of prisons, maximum security, medium security, minimum security, and women’s prisons. Prisons are a very important part of our judicial system. Another player in this group is the jail. Jails also have a role in this work group and it is an important role. The different types of prisons are needed because of the different types of criminals. These criminals cannot all be housed together because this can cause problems. Maximum security prisons restrict the inmates the most because these criminals commit the worst crimes and need to be watched more closely and have the most security. Medium security prisons require less rules and restrictions as the criminals either committed a lesser crime or are toward the end of a long sentence and are not a threat to others. Minimum security prisons require the least restrictions. There are some facilities, such as county jails which may hold all types of criminal either awaiting trial or awaiting to be moved to their prison where they will spend their incarceration. Women’s prison must be separate from men for safety reasons. Women and men cannot be housed together. When the judge sentences a convicted criminal, the judge takes into consideration the type of crime and decides what type of facility to send the criminal to. The more severe crimes and federal crimes are usually sentenced to maximum security...
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...Introduction There are over 90,000 women in prison in the U.S. today. (WEAP) Between 1980 and 1993, the growth rate for the female prison population increased approximately 313%, compared to 182% for men in the same period. At the end of 1993 women accounted for 5.8% of the total prison population and 9.3% of the jail population nationwide. (NWLC) Although the proportion of prisoners who are women is relatively small, women make up the fastest growing subset of the entire prison population. For this reason, and because male supremacy and sexist justice are so intimately related to this problem, a separate consideration of women in prison is needed. Male privilege and domination, and the protection of that privilege have long been and continue to be central to the criminal prosecution system. In this essay I will consider three main subjects in this regard: Social and economical causes of female violence, what’s the reaction of society and justice system to it, how prison works in this society and what’s its effect on female prisoners? Social and Economical Causes of Female Violence First I will consider social and economical causes of female violence. Who are the women in prison? The profile that emerges in study after study is that of young, single mother with few job skills, a high school dropout whom lives below the poverty level are the most typical women in prison. Seventy-five percent are between the ages of twenty-five and thirty-four, are mothers of dependent children...
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...justice system, an outwardly fair organization of integrity and justice, is a perfect example of a seemingly equal situation, which turns out to be anything but for women. The policies imposed in the criminal justice system affect men and women in extremely dissimilar manners. I plan to examine how gender intersects with the understanding of crime and the criminal justice system. Gender plays a significant role in understanding who commits what types of crimes, why they do so, who is most often victimized, and how the criminal justice system responds to these victims and offenders. In order to understand the current state of women and the way in which gender relates to crime and criminal justice, it is first necessary to provide a comprehensive analysis of the historical evolution of women in the criminal justice system and the affect that the different waves of feminism have had on policies and practices towards women in this system. I plan to argue that the criminal justice system is another form of patriarchal control, a sexist organization which creates conflict between the private sphere of a woman's life and the public. This control extends far beyond the just incarcerated women, it affects all women. Despite the fact that there have been changes to certain policies and prison regulations, though made with resistance, none of the changes have been for the better. By looking at past and present situations as well as the differing feminist perspectives on the justice system, I...
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...Women are underrepresented in our correctional system even though they comprise a very small percentage in our correctional system. In the last decade we have seen a higher number of women being sentenced to prison. Women commit crime and are incarcerated under different circumstances and reasons than men. Their criminal behavior can be attributed to drug abuse, sexual abuse, physical abuse and poverty. Women who are admitted into prison facilities are disadvantaged from the very beginning; prisons are calculated and planned for our male counterparts because in history men have made up the proportion of our high prison populace. It is hard to meet the needs of women prisoners when the facilities are not custom-made for them. Prisons for women should be geared with programming to help these women deal with obstacles they are facing in their daily lives. But because there are fewer women in prison, the health services that are given to them are typically nominal as compared to males. One of the biggest problems for women in prison is that they are disproportionately affected by human immunodeficiency virus commonly known as HIV. There is a tangible need to address the problem with HIV positive incarcerated women. (Reyes, 2001) Female prisoners make up about five percent of our overall prison population but as time has passed their numbers have increased at a rapid pace. In countries where substance abuse is high and drug laws have become harsher, we can see a correlation between...
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...opinion, I believe that before the 1800s women’s prisons happened to be very developed for the women that committed crimes and caused problems. Before the 1800s, in prisons there happened to be these types of devices that were used, which were called the Brank, and it was used to punish and control the women that happened to be outspoken women and the women that disobeyed their husbands. At this time, things happened to get very bad for women. Before the 1800 century, the type of punishment that was used for women happened to be given in many different forms which really caused problems during this time. Some of the women that happened to be serious offenders happened to be hung or even burned. Plus, there happened to be some women that were sold as slaves to others. Since then women’s prisons have changed completely. If they were to commit a crime they will be punished for it, but they will be punished in the proper way without violating their rights. A number of individuals happen to argue that the 1800 century and the early 1900 century happened to be a period in which the change of the juvenile criminals would have taken place. There were a lot of key features that were in the juvenile justice system which happened to cause tension between the systems of punishment and reformation, plus the separation of all of the juveniles from adults of the criminal justice system. I believe that if there wasn’t a difference between the prisons for the juveniles and adults there would...
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...Rickers Island is a prison which is located in New York which holds offenders who have been charged but not tried. The documentary shown shows the prison ethics and lifestyle inside the prison. It also focuses on the women’s condition inside the prison who are pregnant. Rickers island has about eight thousand officials to run the prison. There’s a ERU (Emergency Response Unit) who are trained to handle the violent inmates and do area search. Despite of this this inmate manage to smuggle weapons, contrabands and drugs. Inmates manage to create a weapon from almost any objects and in order to maintain the secrecy they have given code names which only inmates can understand. One of the example is “Shiv” which means sharp pointed object. Most of the inmates that are held on the island are bound to return back due to their criminal acts. The video shows most inmates as Hispanic and black. The cells for males and females are separated but female officers are shown to work in male’s section efficiently and on equal footing to male officers. In the video a female officer has been shown effectively operating her duties while putting chains on inmate’s legs....
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...In an unprecedented case involving the rights of an intersexual prison inmate, a Denver federal appeals court found that even though Wyoming officials could have done a better job of safely confining Miki Ann DiMarco, the state did not violate her rights by holding her in Spartan solitary confinement. DiMarco was sent to state prison for a probation violation on a non-violent conviction. DiMarco was sentenced to confinement at the Wyoming Women's Center after her probation on check fraud charges was revoked due to lack of verifiable identification and positive drug tests. She had been held in the Laramie County jail for over a month in the women's section without incident, but on arrival at the state women's prison, a complete medical exam...
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...considerable risk for sexual assault. Women’s prison has a similar environment to the men’s prisons. Women today have educational and vocational programs, rigid scheduling, as well as tight security. The most significant difference is the women’s prison invests in programs to maintain parent child relationships. The three basic arguments that separated the juveniles from the adult prisoners was that the penitentiary system and regimen was too difficult for the younger juveniles, they would also pick up and learn terrible habits from the older juveniles, by their experience in confinement. The whole point in sending a juvenile to prison is to change their way, because they still have time to be reformed, grow up, and change. “Discipline, religious contemplation, and separation from the free world were an attempt change the convicted criminal.” (Prisons for Women) If there was not a distinction for the both, than juveniles would have not a chance to change their behavior, not even learn from their mistakes. Adults would take advantage of the youths, teaching them how to be more of a criminal than what the youth had been in trouble for to begin with. Youths would be abused physically and mentally, there would not be a chance for them to learn and correct their behavioral. Reference: Prisons. (2012). Prisons for Women – History. Retrieved March 13, 2013, from "http://law.jrank.org/pages/1799/Prisons-Prisons-Women-History.html">Prisons: Prisons for Women -...
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...Article Critique In research methodology, feminist scholars blamed qualitative studies which many times failed to bring out the realities of women’s lived experiences (Price & Sokoloff, 2004). Although these experiences are unfortunate common struggles for women offenders, there seemed to be limited research that explored how those struggles in women’s lives seemed to affect their likelihood of recidivism. At last, the “pathways” perspective, which investigates whether women have distinct pathways to initial crime and recidivism compared to men, is improved mainly by qualitative methodologies. In the current study: Gendered Pathways: A Quantitative Investigation of Women Probationers’ Paths to Incarceration, featured in the Journal of Criminal Justice and Behavior, authors Emily J. Salisbury and Patricia Van Voorhis quantitatively investigate women’s possibilities of ongoing criminal behavior (2009). Although some implications did arise, this study is important to the field by offering explanations of female offending which can offer proper interventions to help reduce recidivism. Throughout this paper I will be summarizing and critiquing the above article. The mentioned study uses a path analytic statistical procedure with a sample of 313 newly convicted women probationers selected by the Missouri Department of Corrections according to a stratified sample, to investigate three gendered pathways to women offenders’ incarceration: 1) a pathway beginning with childhood...
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...abuse, substance abuse, and mental illness. The treatment of female offenders is becoming an increasingly important issue. Female offenders are often incarcerated in facilities designed for male treatment and rehabilitation needs. In the past, it was considered that male and female inmates had similar treatment needs, but as correctional administrators become aware of the increasing numbers and the differing needs of female offenders, they must re-evaluate the available treatment programs and begin to implement revisions to the management of program plans. It is now clear that differences in treatment between women and men within the judicial and correctional systems often have harmed rather than helped women (Harris 1998). In addition, Harris (1998) adds that evidence continues to grow of ways in which women’s experiences have been tied to their race and class, as well as the part of the country in which they lived and other personal characteristics. Research suggests that female offenders differ from male offenders on many factors relevant to rehabilitation and treatment planning. The focus of current research is why the population of female offenders is increasing drastically in comparison to the male population. The drastic increase in the number of female offenders illustrates that there is a strong need to increase the number of treatment...
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...Abstract The purpose of this research is to provide a glimpse into the rate of women's incarceration in the United States and the contributing factors leading to an increase in such incarcerations. Statistical review alludes to an increase in the rate of incarceration among women. The aim of this research was to establish the connection between diverse behaviors and imprisonment rates among women. Findings indicate that women’s rearrests, may be the contributing factor for the recorded increase in the growth of women in prison in the United States. One can thus deduce that the incarceration policies and environments in female prisons are disconnected with the social discourse, thereby ill-equipping incarcerated women with proper skills to reintegrate...
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...Associate Level Material Appendix A Prisoners Worksheet Complete the worksheet by writing short responses to the questions in each row. |How would you differentiate male and female |When you compare the roles of males and female prisons, the men’s prisons had no | |prisoner backgrounds? Is there a better |equivalent found in women’s prisons. In men’s prisons you will find cohesive | |solution to prisoner background |subculture, but the women’s are basically a small, intimate family with groups that | |classification? Explain. |are usually centered by homosexual relationships and this helps with their affection | | |starvation. I cannot think of a better solution to prisoner background classification.| | |When backgrounds are done they are usually always thoroughly checked if they have | | |violent tendencies, or are in gang affiliations. They do this to help to separate them| | |to the right various units and prisons. | |How do state and federal prisoners differ? |With federal and state prisoners they have different aspects. With state prisoners | |What issues affect state versus federal |they usually have not committed a federal offense such as murder, but with federal | |prisoners...
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...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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