INCARCERATION IN U.S

The increased use of Incarceration in the United States

[Name of the Institute]

The increased use of Incarceration in the United States

Introduction

United States is known for its increased use of incarceration in the past two decades. According to the reports, there were less than 500,000 people who got imprisoned in the jails. Recently the number of imprisoned has increased to million, and the number is increasing daily. The government is spending over $35 billion annually on education, health and human service; still the use of incarceration in the United States is increasing.

It is important to know the policy implications before getting into the detail of increased use of incarceration in the United States (Hudson 2011, pp. 45). The criminal justice policies based on the belief that a “Hard line” reduces recurrence got not supported by empirical data. The penalties incarceration and other sanctions criminal should be imposed purposes other than reducing the rate of recurrence (e.g. to make dangerous offenders out of state harm or condemn behaviour prohibited). The absence of repressive effects in the various groups of offenders shows that imposing selective sanctions groups not justified. For example, the incarceration rations and intermediate sanctions failed to reduce the recurrence or youth, nor in adult offenders. The ineffectiveness of punitive strategies to reduce recidivism confirms the need to focus resources to support by different methods evidence (Banks 2003, pp. 53). Programs rehabilitation based on research offer an acceptable alternative with respect to the decrease in the rate of recurrence.

Public opinion, incarceration and penal system in the United States: the influences of the political and media

Since the mid-60s, and even more since the 80, the speech penal has hardened considerably in the countries Western, especially United States. The “war on crime”, followed by “War on drugs” launched by the successive U.S. presidents have caused an increase in the use incarceration, in addition to increasing the length of sentences and, in many cases, degrading conditions of imprisonment, reasoning of the prison population (Wilson 2011, pp. 41). Perception, often incorrect, the crime situation in the United States by the population got influenced by increasing coverage of acts Criminals, by a generalization of violence in the ghettos and a capitalization policy uncertainty created by such coverage journalism.

Indeed, while the number of reports on the crime doubled between 1992 and 1993. As crime decreases since 1980, President Clinton presented to Congress in 1993 a severe law of war crime advantage of the favourable political climate (Baldus 2004, pp. 1432). The number of reports covering crime was $ 1700 in 1993 in the new national networks of the three most important ABC, CBS and NBC, a third of all news bulletins presented by these three networks. The homicide rate, a factor that influences mainly the perception of the alleged rising crime, has been declining since the early 1980s, where it reached 10.2 per 100 000. Many politicians call for prison sentences ever severe claiming the alleged effectiveness of deterrence, but also following a policy perspective ...