Reducing Recidivism Rates

Reducing Recidivism Rates

Introduction

The United States has less than five percent of the world's population, but it has almost a quarter of the world's prisoners. Around twenty percent of the new commitments each year are parole violators and a large majority are non-violent offenders. According to Adam Liptak in his article “U.S. Prison Population Dwarfs that of Other Nations,” “The United States has, for instance, 2.3 million criminals behind bars, more than any other nation, according to data maintained by the International Center for Prison Studies at King's College London.” (Skovron, 2004).

Americans are often locked up for things such as using drugs or writing a bad check. Sending someone to prison should be our last resort because it's expensive and can increase risk for future criminal behavior. Yet, even as the crime rates decrease, prisons are still overcrowded. The reason for this, according to the American Legislative Exchange Council in the article “Prison Overcrowding,” is: During the late 1980s and early 1990s, state and local governments passed tough crime legislation. For example, California passed the “three strikes and you're out” law which called for mandatory sentencing of repeat offenders, and New York adopted the “Broken Windows” strategy that called for the arrest and prosecution of all crimes large and small. Policy such as this led to reduced crime rates, but increased populations in jails and prisons (Farrington, 1999).

While mandatory sentencing laws are being passed, laws criminalizing an increasing number of behaviors are also being passed. The result is that, not only are judges forced to send people to prison in cases where it might not be necessary, but they are forced to do so because there are more activities which come with mandatory sentences than ever before. overcrowding in California was so bad in California that the Supreme Court declared it to be cruel and unusual punishment and ordered the state to cut its prison population. Prison overpopulation is a problem that can, and should be prevented.

Discussion

The United States is considered the most punitive country in the world, has the world's highest incarceration rate holding more than 2.3 million people and overcrowding has become a major problem for the prison system (Parole Reform, 2010). There are 748 people inmates per 100,000 population and rising (Parole Reform, 2010). There are reasons such as the three strike law, the economy, and the war on drugs. We are going to glance at these reasons and the problems that raise concern for overcrowded prisons.

The three strike law that many states have adopted affects the prison population, giving repetitive offenders mandatory minimum sentences of 25 years to life for the third conviction of a felony offense. The three strike law that holds this harsh penalty will continue to cause prison overcrowding in years to come. There are some states prisons are operating at almost twice their designed capacity rate. The belief behind the law was that getting career criminals off the streets was good public policy, but many in many cases we may ...