I learned a lot by reading this report. Some things that I learned that surprised me were that 600,00 people enter prison each year. This astounds me that that many people get locked up a year in prison. Another thing that I found out that shocked me even more than that is that people go to jail 10.6 million times each year. This number dumbfounded me until I thought about and people that are in jail could just spend the night, and that would count so that would make sense. Another thing that I found interesting in his article is that 1 in 10 juveniles are either in an adult jail or prison. This is not good because they will be taken advantage of badly and that is not good. It is also crazy that 63,000 youth are locked up. This is a sad statistic. Net jail growth is caused due to pretrial detention. Something disturbing is that why most people are held in jail for pretrial is because they do not have enough money to bail themselves out of jail even if they are innocent. Going along with that same theme is that 76% of people being held in jail are not convicted of any crimes. Another thing I found interesting is that only 8% of prisoners are held in private prisons. This really surprised me because people make such a big deal out of them and it is the topic of our class paper and to find out that only 8% are locked up in a private prison is surprising to me. I also find it surprising that only 13,000 people are being held by Immigration and Customs enforcement surprises me because millions of people have illegally crossed our borders and only 13,000 get caught just does not seem right to me. -Legion001
I was also amazed that 600,000 people enter prison each year, I think we need to do something to lower that number. Wether they get sentenced or not we need to make some sort of changes to lower our mass incarceration rates. Especially for low level crimes, where the criminal is only hurting himself. I was also amazed at the number of people who go to prison each year, that is every 1 in 5 people in the us that go to jail. I also though that immigration, and customs had a higher amount of our incarceration rates. 13,000 really isn't that much. I-Like-Cereal002
While most of these numbers are very shocking, we need to look at this in retrospect to what our incarceration used to look like. The number may be very large and I agree that we need to continue to try and drop our rates, it still is much smaller than it used to be over 20 years ago. These charts not only gave visual representation to what these number look like as a whole but also showed how the get tough on crime laws with drug offenses really affected society. We have been steadily working toward dropping much of the original laws but still have a long way to go before we reach optimal effectiveness of our corrections system. -Blues001
I was shocked to read that 600,000 people enter prison each year. I think changes could be made to lower that number to a more respectable number. Wether they get sentenced or not we need to make some sort of changes to lower our mass incarceration rates based on the crimes that occur and other things that contribute to incarceration. I think that possibly changing some of the drug laws in our country would lower some of the rates because of how high drug arrests are. -CUBSFAN002
This article was a very interesting read, it opened my eyes up to a lot of things that I did not know before reading this article. I did not know that most people in jail are being held because they are awaiting trial, and have not been sentenced yet. Most of America's mass incarceration is drug related, or due to the war on drugs. Every year over 600,000 people enter the prison gates, that number is actually amazing, and I guarantee you these people going to jail are going on low level crimes related to drugs. 540,000 people who are locked up are on pre-trial. I think we need to find a way to make the trial process more quicker, so we can lower our incarceration rate. 451,000 people are incarcerated everyday for nonviolent drug crimes. That number is insane. It is amazing that many people are being put in jail everyday just for having weed on them. Sure they will probably get out of jail within 10 hours of their booking, but they are still going to jail. There is 98,698 people going from probation back to incarceration every year. I feel like that number is large, but not too significant. I feel like our probation system is working very well. We have 3.6 million people on probation every year. I think probation should be used even more. It works better than prison, and I think it will shrink our recidivism rate. We have over 10.6 million people go to jail every year. Police make over 1 million drug arrest each year, I think we should loosen up the strictness of our drug laws. 1 in 5 people are incarcerated on a drug offense. I am just curious if all these people who are locked up on drug crimes get sentenced or not. I-Like-Cereal002
I agree that this article was very interesting and it also opened my eyes to the real problem of mass incarceration. I was shocked when I read that 600,000 people every year enter the prison gates. I also had no idea that 540,000 are waiting to go to trial. 451,000 are incarcerated everyday for nonviolent crimes. But did you actually know that releasing violent criminals would actually help reduce the mass incarceration problem? The article claims that they are the most unlikely to commit another act of violence. The same goes for people who have commited sex crimes as well. Overall, I liked what you had to say in your blog. However, I disagree about the probation system working. I believe a lot of times that probation sets people up to fail. -pizza002
Mass Incarceration is a concerning issue right now. Although the crime rate is going down, we can make it decrease even more by reducing the silly misdemeanors or even the low offense crimes. According to prisonpolicy.org, “ The American criminal justice system holds almost 2.3 million people in 1,719 state prisons, 109 federal prisons, 1,772 juvenile correctional facilities, 3,163 local jails, and 80 Indian Country jails as well as in military prisons, immigration detention facilities, civil commitment centers, state psychiatric hospitals, and prisons in the U.S. territories.” Every year, over 600,000 people enter prison gates, but people go to jail 10.6 million times each year. This number is very high. If we start fining people for their low drug offenses, or fine people for misdemeanors than the crime rate will go down. Most people that get locked up end up losing everything that they have. So therefore, we can aid in a rehabilitation center in helping past offenders start their life over. Help them get a job, give them food, and a roof over their head. If not, they are then just going to keep offending to be put in jail so they have the necessities in order to survive. Policy changes that will end mass incarceration is up for the public to have knowledge and put the situation into perspective about mass incarceration. Yes, drug crimes are very common but there are far more violent and property offenses than drug offenses. One in five inmates are locked up for drug offenses. One main myth is that all prisons are factories behind the gates. This is incorrect, they may have jobs inside the prisons that require factory like work, but this is the only way inmates would be able to pay for compensatory. It also gives them a perspective of a real job and they can take that experience and be able to apply it to a real job. Mass incarceration is slowing decreasing, we need to keep persevering in the direction of helping others/offenders that come out so they don’t repeat the process of going back to prison. #notaplumber002
I agree with you when you say we should fine instead of incarcerate those low risk drug offenders and misdemeanor criminals therefore directly decreasing the incarceration rate. It is not like they will get put on probation and if they commit a technical violation, they will get sent to jail. I also agree with you that when we incarcerate people, do not just lock them up and let them sit there. Rehabilitate them by giving them a job to pay for a house and food, but then again that also brings up the issue of money. We do not have the financial stability to rehabilitate every offender in our corrections system. -lilbaby001
Before reading this report I have seen and read that our incarceration rates have been dropping since the days of Mass Incarceration, but these numbers are still very high and shocking. Seeing that 600,000 people go into a prison is a very stunning number but seeing that the jails number is 10.6 million was even more concerning. Despite the jails number being that high due to those awaiting trial due to not being able to afford bail, that number still appears to be larger than it should be if we plan to drop our incarceration rates. Another thing that I read was that police officers nationwide make over 1 million drug arrests each year and it says that can lead to a future of problems for those people. I agree with that because a nonviolent drug conviction can cause a snowball affect on someones life, ruining job prospects, and which usually results in re offense or harsher second time offense sentences. This report also showed that pretrial detention results in 540,000 people locked in jail until bail or trial and that is what I just previously stated that it not only can ruin a life but also costs the jail more money having to house an inmate who could potentially be impoverished and can not afford bail. Another thing that I read was that 1 in 10 juveniles are incarcerated at some point and that is a number that is very concerning because they are being locked inside an adult prison or jail. While the "out of sight and out of hearing" applies to these juveniles it is still unnerving to think that someone young can be inside an establishment with grown men with nothing to lose. The report also showed that 1 in 5 individuals locked up are for drug offenses which are non violent crimes. While that number may not be as shocking as some of the others it still shows the echo of the 80's era "Get tough on crime" laws. Seeing that the majority of juveniles who are locked up have not even been committed is quite confusing to me because if the initiative is to prevent future crimes then these kids need to have alternate programs in order to avoid a future of crime. The most shocking number to me was that there are 3.6 million people on probation which is such a large amount of the population of our country all being controlled by our corrections system. -Blues001
I agree that even if we let out non-violent drug offenders, if we keep having officers arrest drug offenders we will be doing but temporarily slow down the endless cycle. It is imperative that the war on drugs at least shifts focus from small time drugs like weed to something more major that has more of an impact in someone's life. I am not entirely sure how to deal with all the people who are awaiting trial in jail that can not afford bail. Should we just treat drug offenses like speeding tickets where there is no jail time? It is a very interesting subject that we as a society must answer in order to get any change. Jackrabbit001
I found the five myths about mass incarceration in this article to be very interesting. The first “myth” about releasing non-violent drug offenders would end mass incarceration. As they put it and the article this is a myth because far more people are incarcerated for violent crimes or property crimes. The second “myth” is that private prisons are responsible for mass incarceration. While it really sucks that private prisons profit off of others misfortune or poor decisions, private prisons only represent 8% of the prison populations. The third myth describes prisons as factories where the workers are treated like slaves. The truth is that prisons do rely on prisoners to do things like serve food and do laundry and they do earn wages but these wages are very low and don't amount to much. The fourth myth states that expanding community supervision is the best way to reduce incarceration. Community supervision includes parole, probation, and pretrial supervision. The conditions required by probation or parole are often times too strict and set the person up for failure. Finally v myth States people in prison for violent or sexual crimes are too dangerous to be released. Apparently people who are convicted of homicide are the least likely to be re-arrested. People convicted of rape or sexual assault also apparently have lower re-arrest rates as opposed to people who might commit motor vehicle theft. With this myth I think they're too concerned about the idea of them reoffending and not concerned enough with what they did in the first place deserve their sentence. I feel like if someone takes another person's life or rapes a person they deserve to and spend a long time in prison. Even if they got out of prison they should have to bear that mark somehow I think even if they never re-offended. Maybe that's not fair but that's just my opinion. -waterboy001
I had no idea that so many people were detained for pretrial. Over 540,000 people who might be innocent. I understand that many people can not afford bail but it does not seem justly to lock up people awaiting trial when the case against them is not even that strong. The first "myth" that releasing non-violent drug offenders would fix the problem is not true. The way the media talks about it it makes me feel that if we released all non-violent drug offenders that it would instantly cure our crowding problem over night. I also had believed that community supervision would be a great way to reduce incarceration. That statistics on that tell me otherwise. I find it interesting to see how many youths are in prison or jail just due to status offenses or non-violent crimes. It makes me really believe that age has to much control over our criminal justice system. Adding on to that point, seeing how many adults that are incarcerated due to a technical violation of parole or probation is insane. To know that most did not actually commit another crime but just violated curfew is interesting. This quote "poverty is not only a predictor of incarceration; it is also frequently the outcome," is very interesting to me because that is a real life problem that we should work on fixing moving forward. To me, it feels like a game where only the rich can play and come out on top. I understand that we are trying to hit people where it hurts them but sometimes it feels as if the criminal justice system can go to far when impacting the lives of people who are not affluent. Jackrabbit001
I rely like how you mentioned that the media makes it seem like the majority of prisoners are locked up because of drug related offenses. I honestly used to think that most people in prison were just people who made a mistake involving drugs when they were younger. This makes me wonder how the majority of people in the U.S. see prison due to the way media portrays it. I wish more people would do their research on issues like this rather than just listening to the news. Sexy_in_bikini001
This article opened my eyes to a lot. They start my explaining how there is no easy way to answer the hard questions such as “Can it really be true that most people in jail are being held before trial?”. I’m glad that they pointed that out at the beginning, because a lot of people claim to know the answers to all the hard questions. This writer kept it honest and down to the facts. The first thing that really captured my attention was how many people were in our jails and prisons. Not only how many people were in there, but also how many detention centers we have here in the U.S. It’s sad that we need so many, and its sad that we are so comfortable throwing people into these facilities rather than offering more rehabilitation options. The next thing that I found interesting was the pie chart of people in various detention centers for various crimes. Prisons primarily consist of drug related or violent offenders while local jails have the majority of people in there as “not convicted”. This means that they are awaiting trial. However, one can pay bail to get out early to wait for their trial rather than staying locked behind bars. However, many people can’t afford bail and are forced to stay behind bars. The next interesting thing that I noticed was how nearly half a million people have been incarcerated for some form of drug offense. While this number is large, many people in prison are there for violent offenses. Something else that I didn’t know was that less than 8% of people who are incarcerated are sent to private prisons. Id expect more to be in there considering how much I’m always hearing about them. Over all this article has been very informative and cleared up, and made me more aware, of issues in our corrections system. Sexy_in_bikini 001
I was also surprised when i saw that 8% of inmates are in private prisons. Yet, that doesn’t change the fact that even some public jails are paid by other prisons to house inmates. They make money off of them. So just like private prisons are focused on money and less rehabilitation, I wonder if the same public ones are also in it for the money. I also found interesting the different myth that correlated with overcrowding in prison but isn't the main reason as to why it is. dory002
As I am reading this article, I have come to some conclusions in my head about the technical violations during probation. According to the article, it says that it is a myth we put people on probation to lessen mass incarceration for the reason of we are setting them up for failure. If an individual is on probation and they commit a technical violation while on probation, we send them to prison therefore raising the incarceration rate. If this is the case, what I would do is maybe give the probationer a couple chances before sending them to jail, therefore directly decreasing the rate of mass incarceration. If it is a violent offense while on probation, going straight to jail would be necessary but for technical violations like being out past curfew or hanging out with their friends when they are not supposed to, we need to think about giving the probationer a few chances. The United States locks up more people per capita than any other nation, which is a direct correlation to why we are facing problems with mass incarceration. This article provides five myths as to why we face mass incarceration and provides the facts as to why we do face it. One of the outstanding myths that surprised me was that releasing non-violent drug offenders would end mass incarceration. This surprises me because it seems like majority of offenders in corrections committed a drug related crime. Obviously, this will not solve all of our problems with mass incarceration, but I think that it could definitely solve some. It is said that at state and local levels more people are incarcerated for violent and property offenses rather than drug offenses. To end this problem at the state and local level, our reforms would have to go further than just petty drug offenses. Overall, this article has given me a bigger picture of mass incarceration and our corrections systems. -lilbaby001
Fun fact, this is actually one of my articles for my paper on Mass Incarceration! From my knowledge on this article it is full of statistics and it breaks down and explains a lot of issues and numbers to the public eye. The most interesting facts I found today were: The American criminal justice system holds almost 2.3 million people in 1,719 state prisons, 109 federal prisons, 1,772 juvenile correctional facilities, 3,163 local jails, and 80 Indian Country jails as well as in military prisons, immigration detention facilities, civil commitment centers, state psychiatric hospitals, and prisons in the U.S. territories. It is inane knowing that we hold almost 2.3 MILLION people in a prison, juvenile facility, jails, and military prisons. That is insane. Every year, over 600,000 people enter prison gates, but people go to jail 10.6 million times each year. These numbers are huge. Drug offenses still account for the incarceration of almost half a million people, and nonviolent drug convictions remain a defining feature of the federal prison system. It is sad to think that drug offenses makeup so much of our prison population. incarcerated people earn between 86 cents and $3.45 per day for the most common prison jobs. That is crazy! 86 to $3.45 per day is sad! at least 168,000 people were incarcerated for such “technical violations” of probation or parole – that is, not for any new crime. This is crazy! People convicted of homicide are the least likely to be re-arrested, and those convicted of rape or sexual assault have re-arrest rates roughly 30-50% lower than people convicted of larceny or motor vehicle theft. This is disturbing. 8,100 youth behind bars for technical violations of their probation, rather than for a new offense. This is sad. Another 49,000 people are civilly detained by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) not for any crime, but simply for their undocumented immigrant status. THIS IS SAD. 22,000 people are involuntarily detained or committed to state psychiatric hospitals and civil commitment centers. involuntarily :/ This article is very factual and helpful. -freckles001
When thinking about Mass Incarceration, we must consider the facts and data at hand. Our jails and prisons are over populated. Many of the people who are imprisoned are people of color and for minor charges. Majority of people who are incarcerated are there for war on drugs. There was a report done and roughly in The American criminal justice system we hold nearly 2.3 million people in 1,719 state prisons, 109 federal prisons, 1,772 juvenile correctional facilities, 3,163 local jails, and 80 Indian Country jails as well as in military prisons, immigration detention facilities, civil commitment centers, state psychiatric hospitals, and prisons in the U.S. territories. This is alarming. It seems as though; our society would rather incarcerate somebody instead of help them. There are programs that are centered towards helping people get back on the straight and narrow path. Many people who are incarcerated in jail are simply waiting to see the judge. Many times, when the person is first brought into the jail, there are multiple charges. However; once they finally see the judge, many times there is only one or two charges brought up at trial. Many reasons for lack of evidence. It seems as though, jail is simply a place where we warehouse someone for a certain amount of time. The article talks about five myths. The first is Releasing “nonviolent drug offenders” would end mass incarceration. It is false, because at least half of the people whoa re incarcerated have been arrested for a simple drug possession. Secondly, Private prisons are the corrupt heart of mass incarceration. This is false, because less than eight percent of inmates are incarcerated in private jails. Thirdly, Prisons are “factories behind fences” that exist to provide companies with a huge slave labor force. There is only roughly five thousand people who are incarcerated who are employed by private companies. Many inmates are paid less than a dollar a day to preform duties. Fourthly, expanding community supervision is the best way to reduce incarceration. Many of those who are on supervision tend to fail, because the rules they have to live by are too extreme. Finally, people in prison for violent or sexual crimes are too dangerous to be released. People who are convicted of serious crimes are least likely to be re-arrested. Illinigurl002
Mass incarceration is a very hot topic within the criminal justice community as of late. Though we all seem to have ideas about what it all means, it almost seems like no one can quite pinpoint what is causing the issue at hand. That is because it is not just one specific thing, and this article breaks it down for us. First, it is pointed out that there are many systems of confinement that we seemingly forget about. You think mass incarceration, and your head goes straight to prisons. Why do we not think of juvenile detention, immigration detention, military prisons, Indian country jails, state psychiatric hospitals, civil commitment centers and even the common jails? Though over 600,000 people go to prison every year, people are going to jail over ten million times a year. What a lot of people don't understand is that not every person that goes to jail has been convicted of a crime. Many people that go to jail get out within hours or days on bail, and some are too poor to get out on bail so just end up staying behind bars until their trial. Less than 150,000 people put in jail annually are convicted and made to serve out their time for a misdemeanor crime. There is another population of nearly 50,000 people locked up every year. Not for crime, but because of their lack of documentation concerning their immigrant status. Those people are held by Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Another group of involuntarily held individuals is the 22,000 people committed to state psychiatric facilities and commitment centers annually. All in all this article was very eye opening and shed light on the darkest place in criminal justice, mass incarceration. -psych001
It’s really true that most people in the jail are being held before trial. Just having a criminal record can reduce the likelihood of a callback for a job offer by nearly fifty percent. The negative impact of a criminal record is twice as large for African American applicants. Some have said that the war on drugs is responsible for America's massive prison and jail populations. And while this rings true in many federal prisons where nearly half of all inmates are locked up for drug charges. More people are in jail waiting for trial then there are people in jail that already have had there trial which means the people waiting for a trial had to wait to prove that they are innocent and once they prove that they are innocent if they are then they get a trial and they have already missed so much time from there life and families lives which is truly sad. The expense produced by these overcrowded prisons cost the country a substantial amount of money every single year. Although people are incarcerated for a number of reasons, the country’s prisons are focused on punishment rather than reform, and the result is a misguided system that fails to rehabilitate criminals or discourage crime. Society needs to understand that incarcerating an individual not only effects the the person in jail but it affects there kids, parents, spouse, and just so many other people. The incarnation fact is most people are sitting in jail waiting on a trail date missing time with there kids and family for a small crime which can probably be justified or may result in little after the years he/she already spend in jail. Or they are waiting for a trial for a crime that they may have not even committed. Batman002
Reading the article “Mass Incarceration: The Whole Pie 2019” I feel the U.S. should take notes from the Dutch criminal justice system. Dutch prisons are empty, so empty that they are turning some of the buildings into refugee housing. This is due to their court systems relaxed drug laws and focus on rehabilitation. A prison sentence should not be looked at as a form of rehabilitation when most prisons in America do not offer any sort of treatment such as educational services, mental health services or trade schools. This is why we have the largest incarceration rates. As the article states the U.S has 2.3 million people incarcerated in our 1,719 state prison, 109 federal prisons, 1,772 juvenile facilities, 3,163 local jails, 80 Indian Country jails, as well as military prisons, and immigration detention facilities. What is concerning is that just in our local jails 540 thousand inmates have not even been convicted and are pretrial inmates. With these raising numbers I feel like all of the U.S could benefit from the “Bail Reform Act” that was implemented in Illinois at the beginning of 2017. The act “does not focus on a person's wealth and ability to afford monetary bail but shall instead focus on a person's threat to public safety or risk of failure to appear before a court of appropriate jurisdiction.” With this anyone that is incarcerated on a category B offense and a class A misdemeanor shall receive 30 dollars a day towards their total cash bond. For example if a person is arrested on simple battery the bond is normally one thousand ten percent. Meaning to bond or get out of jail that person would need 100 dollars cash. With the bail reform act this person if unable to post the 100 dollars cash could sit in jail for three days and then be release with a notice to appear in court. This would then reduce mass incarceration for petty misdemeanor offenses. Jadist002
I agree that we should look into other countries policies and learn from them. The US justice system is great but it definitely has it’s problems. I think that we should maybe look at countries that are similar to our situation or have been in the past. Dutch prisons are very empty, and ours are way to full so it would be hard to take any policies that they have and relate them to ours. Instead I think that we should look at a country that is more similar to ours so that we can see what works for them and try it in ways here.-Celtics001
Prisons do work in the sense that it locks up so that the offender wont then commit crimes, at least against the general public. Yet it fails to change behavior. Despite multiple new laws, and successful politicians passing tough and tougher sentence, offender still reoffend upon release. It is a disappointing fact that released prisoners in this country reoffending rate of approximately 70 percent. the statistics on prison reoffending are overwhelming bad. Of course the public does not want the authority to be soft on prisoners. the justice needs to command the respect and confidence of people. punishment and the deprivation of liberty are clearly the starting point. Prisons fail to rehabilitate offenders fundamentally because they do not focus enough on doing so. estimates show that roughly 50 percent of U.S prison inmate are drug offenders. To address the ever resolving door of drug abuse and incarceration, the national drug control strategy supports treatment over imprisonment for nonviolent offenders within criminal justice system GUSII 002
People who commit violent crimes such as murder or rape I agree they should go to prison, Nut I do not agree that prison works for everyone. In prison what are you doing? Sitting there with idle time and time. Are you learning anything? A trade, getting an education or any life skills programs? I feel we will never be effective in the criminal justice system until we attack these areas. You cant just place someone in prison and expect them to change if you do not give them a new outlook on life and show them there is something better they can do with there life. Now I not saying there are some that have mental health issues and some that are so far gone that you will not be able to reach them, but there are still people you can reach and want the help. Jadist002
I think a lot of times we look at the problem of mass incarceration and jump straight to prisons, sentencing laws, and drug laws but as this article points most people who are in prison are indeed in there for violent or property crime and those are the kind of people we all mostly agree should be locked up. While it's logical to look there I think one thing a lot of people miss in the discussion is talking about how to prevent these crimes in the first place. I feel as though if we would invest time and energy into creating better social structures for people and into getting people mental health treatment we could reduce the prison population by quite a bit. Of course that is something that takes years to see the results of. I also think there are things we could do right now to help like getting rid of private prisons, decriminalizing drugs, get rid of mandatory sentencing, etc etc. But as the article points out those are smaller pieces of a much bigger puzzle I just think those are things we can do now to at least help Avatar002
Mass incarceration was a result of the war on drugs in the 80’s, but now some states are not focused on that in order to reduce mass incarceration. The article focused on where and why the US has mass incarceration in the first place and what is a way to reduce it, without stating facts that can’t help with it. For example, it mentioned war on drugs, private prisons, and supervisions like probation, explain why some inmates are in prison but there no way to help reduce it with those facts as to what I understood from the article. Mass incarceration as stated in the text, is about 2.3 million people, which most are not even convitioned yet. 76% of the population in jails are inmates that have not yet been convicted of a crime. As i read the text, I saw that local jails are like the “front doors” to the whole system. People are arrested and most can not afford bail and are waiting for there trial. Which I think that is something very unfair especially when some arrest are from poor communities. I think mass incarceration comes from having a constant cycle of the offenders that are not given the proper rehabilitation in order to not reoffend. When it comes to probation, which ideally is better than being locked up is seen as alternative that is still lead to prison. What I found most interesting was how the article mentioned that most people that are incarcerated for serious offenses like murder or sexual crimes, when they are let out they are less likely to reoffend. Yet, there are longer and harsher punishments compared to the nonviolent crimes. taco001
I sometimes see bail as unfair when it comes to the different working classes. If someone gets arrested and they’re higher class, they probably will not have a problem paying their bail. If someone gets arrested and they’re lower class, they might have a problem with paying their bill. The person that is lower class might be automatically stuck there. They might not of even done anything wrong. I don’t agree with the non violent crimes being punished longer or harsher. Law enforcement wants to keep out streets safe but they want to incarcerate the non violent offenders longer. If the person is non violent, they probably won’t be threat to our society. -Soccer002
Prisons have lost sight of what is important. Rehabilitation has almost become a thing of the past and we would rather have people who come in stay in. America has become so tough on crime and it has been detrimental to the system. Those who are released are likely to reoffend at such a high rate. But what will it show if we relax and become more laid back on crime and offenders. There are still programs to where they are able to earn a ged and in some cases a diploma. But people who have already been through those programs and come back in have nothing left. And drug abuse will always be the constant that you see in people that reoffend. Laws are changing to help that as of recent. The Weed laws have become much more lax and you do not see as many people coming back in for that. I think we need to rethink treatment of non violent offenders and look at the specifics of their case.-Purdue001
I learned a lot from reading the Mass Incarceration Article, the few things I didn’t know about were that over 540,000 people are behind bars and they haven’t been convicted or sentenced. The reason for this is because many people are in local jails because they can’t pay the bail amount, the median bail amount is ten thousand for felonies which most people make that in about eight months. It is so difficult to get a speedy trial. The youth make up fifteen thousand of the pretrial detention, psychiatric evaluation takes up nine thousand, and federal takes up fifty-one thousand. Another thing I didn’t know was that one in five people are locked up for drug incarceration, four hundred and fifty one thousand are incarcerated for non-violent drug offenses every day. Less than eight percent of people who are incarcerated are in private prisons. Which is why publicly owned prisons and jails are so overpopulated. Ten thousand three hundred youths are locked up for offenses which aren’t even crimes. This is a major issue because when jails and prisons are overpopulated they are harder to control and the people who are innocent or have small crimes are being held for longer than they should for that crime. Ark002
This article was really compelling and I learned a lot from reading it. For example, I learned that the American criminal justice system holds almost 2.3 million people in their 1,719 state prisons, 109 federal prisons, 1,772 juvenile correctional facilities, 3,163 local jails and 80 indian country jails. As well as military prisons, immigration detention facilities, civil commitment centers, state psychiatric hospitals, and prisons in the United States of America. That was extremely shocking for me, and I had no idea that the numbers were that high. It really opens your eyes to the mass incarceration problem in America. I also learned that there are five myths about mass incarceration. The first one being, that releasing non violent drug would help end the mass incarceration problem. That is a myth because far more people are in prison due to violent crimes than drug charges. So to really change the high levels are incarceration you’re gonna have to go for more than the “low hanging fruit”. Another fact I learned is that 1 in 5 people are locked up for charges related to drugs. The second myth that I learned is that private prisons are the main reason for mass incarceration. In reality, less than 8 percent of all incarcerated people are held in a private facility. Private prisons profit from mass incarceration, so yes it is a problem. However Private prisons are a parasite and not the true root of the problem. Another myth that the article proved wrong is that prisons provide companies with slave labor. Essentially, companies that use prison labor are not what causes mass incarceration, and they aren’t even the source of all prison jobs. Only 5,000 people, less than 1 percent, are employed through private companies, and they are required to pay them minimum wage. The fourth myth is that expanding extended supervision is the best way to minimize incarceration. Community supervision is probation, parole, pretrial supervision, and they are often referred to as a incarceration alternative. Even though being free under these programs sounds better than being locked up, often times these programs set people up to fail. The fifth myth is that people in jail for violent or sexual offenses are to dangerous to be released. If we as a country are committed about ending mass incarceration we will have to change our response to violent crime. Data actually shows that people locked up for violent and sexual crimes are the least likely to recommit a crime. This article taught me a lot and there were ten main points that really stood out to me. Those ten points being, the American criminal justice system hold 2.3 million people, i learned that releasing non violent offenders will reduce mass incarceration is a myth, 1.5 people are locked up for drug charges, I learned that private prisons don't cause mass incarceration, less than 8 percent of prisons are private, i learned that prisons privind companies with slave labor is a myth, that only 5,000 inmates are employed through these companies, i also learned that is is a myth that expanding extended supervision is the best way to minimize incarceration, I also learned that things like probation and parole set the participants up to fail, lastly I learned that people who commit violent or sexual crime are among the most least likely to recommit a crime. -pizza002
This article is all about incarceration and how it is spread throughout the country. One thing that I learned was that there are more people locked up in state prisons than any other type of jail or prison. The next most populated places are local jails and then federal prisons and jails. Out of the 1,306,000 people locked up in state prisons there are 712,000 locked up for violent crimes. The next most common is property and then drug charges. There are 198,000 people locked up in state prisons for drug charges which I definitely think needs to change. Out of all these people locked up for the drug charges there are probably very few that are violent offenders and are a danger to the community. If we took these people locked up for drug charges such as weed and coke and put them into rehabilitation programs then they could actually make something of their life and not be another reoffending statistic. Another fragment of the people in state prisons for drug charges are for possession of the drugs. That means that some of them aren’t even selling the drugs and have a legitimant addiction to the drug. These people are the ones that go into jail with an addiction and come back out with an addiction. We wonder why these people keep coming back to jail but it’s pretty easy to explain when you look at it like this. A lot of the problems in the criminal justice system is with drug offenses and how we take care of these people. 3.6 million of the 7 million people in the US justice system are on probation. This should tell us that the majority of people in jail for drug offenses aren’t doing it just to get high and because they don’t care, they have an addiction. -Celtics001
Mass incarceration is one of the biggest problems within the criminal justice system today. So many people are being sent to prison that they are overpopulated and have resorted to the creation of private prisons. There are many people held in jail before their trial. The United States already have the highest number of people in prison. According to the chart by Prison Policy Initiative, the type of crimes that most people go to prison for are violent crimes. State prisons are the ones that house the most inmates. The charts do shed some light on the approximate number of people that are sent to prison for what crime. Though we have 2.3 million prisoners we have about 10.6 million of people being sent to jail each year. Many people are held in jail before their trial because they cannot afford to pay their bail. They also discuss some myths about mass incarceration. The first being that releasing non violent drug offenders would end it. Before seeing this I didn't expect that releasing those with drug offenses would end mass incarceration, but it would at least be a big step towards it. Another point that the article makes is that reported data oversimplifies how people interact with the criminal justice system. Like when a person has multiple offenses, only the most serious of them is reported. Or that people convicted of different offenses are grouped together. There is also the belief that poverty plays a role in mass incarceration. I don't really believe that. Though it is true that most who end up going to prison are poor, it does not directly cause crime. I think they should find ways so that if someone is unable to pay their bail that they can pay it off some other way. -Ram001
People are being locked up for very minor crimes. Low level drug offenses are getting years in prison. The United States has a major problem of locking up people for very minor offenses. The United states is one of the most jalinous country on earth. There are 2.3 million people locked up in the United States. The bulk of people that are locked up are in State Prisons. State Prisons hold 1.3 million people, that is over half of the people locked up. Local Jails comes the closest to State Prisons, they hold around 612,000 people. Every year in the United States 600,000 people enter into the prison system. For jails that number is much worse. Every year in the United States there are 10.6 million people who enter the jail system. The reason why that number is so high is that many of these people are just in the jail for a few hours or days. There is a high turnover rate in the jail system. On any given day 15,000 people are convicted in jail and usually serve a year or less. Non-violent drug offenses are a big part in the prison and jail system. 1 and 5 people who are incarcerated are in there for a drug offense. Drug offense makeup 500,000 of the people being locked up a year. People like to think that releasing low level drug offenders will help reduce the problem of mass incarceration. It will help a little but the bulk of people that are locked up in state prisons are violent offenders and property crimes. One of the myths that people believe is that Private Prisons are the corrupt heart of mass incarceration. This myth is not true as Private Prison only hold about 8 percent of incarcerated people. -ClarkKent002
Reading this article was definitely interesting for me because, I can admit it, I believed that removing the "mass" amount of drug offenders from the system would fix mass incarceration. I was also surprised about how little of a percentage played a role when it came to private prisons. It was interesting to see that only 5000 people of the private prison area are in work programs. Definitely paints a picture that there is not a sense prisoner slave labor as some would call it. They are even paid the minimum wage before state deductions. I liked that they acknowledged the existence of the belief that sexual or violent crime offenders are best kept locked up because they are a danger. Just because someone has a violent episode doesn't mean they are one of the dangers to society, or that a person labeled a sex offender is also a danger to a community. People can get these labels with crimes that were committed that sometimes are as simple as undetermined self-defense, or a relationship between a 17 year old and a 19 year old. - Lobster001
Several of the things I found interesting in this article came from the myths about criminal justice. Starting off they talk about how it’s a myth that releasing non-violent offenders would end mass incarceration. While it’s true that many people are being held for non-violent offenses the bulk of people in state and local prisons are indeed locked up for violent and property crimes. They state in the article we will have to go further than looking at non-violent offenders in order to fix mass incarceration and look more closely at strategies involving investing in social services for the community and community based corrections. Also I liked how they brought up private prisons, though they only make up 8% of the current prison population so they can’t really be pointed to as the cause of mass incarceration they are a problem because people still lobby for tougher laws so that more people can be locked up and they can profit. I personally don’t believe prisons should be something that people are profiting from frankly I’d say that’s rather immoral. The third myth they talk about is the myth that prisons are factories behind fences and that businesses are profiting off of prison labor. While this does happen the article contends that it’s not a large factor in what keeps mass incarceration going. They do point out that prisons do rely on work from prisoners to keep prisons going. Many prisoners will have to work in the prison whether it’s in the kitchen or doing laundry. I think prisoners working is an ok thing but the article points out there is little oversight or regulation and they don’t have many rights or protections. I understand these people are in prison but I think it’s important to treat them as people still and make sure they aren’t being exploited. One of these days they will return to society and I would hope that the prison did everything they could to ensure they come out better than when they got there. Avatar002
I agree with you, removing the minor drug offenders that are not as violent is a great start for decreasing mass incarceration. We can force them to pay a fine for their crime and have other sorts of punishment instead of jail. This would decrease our incarceration amount and we would be able to focus our time on bigger crimes and criminals that need to be locked up. Drug offenders are only hurting themselves. If you are stupid enough to do drugs than you’ll quickly see your health declining and realize that you’re hurting yourself and your loved ones. #notaplumber002
I learned a lot and found a lot of things interested in this report. One thing that really stood out to me is when they talked about The American criminal justice system holds almost 2.3 million people in 1,719 state prisons, 109 federal prisons, 1,772 juvenile correctional facilities, 3,163 local jails, and 80 Indian Country jails as well as in military prisons, immigration detention facilities, civil commitment centers, state psychiatric hospitals, and prisons in the U.S. territories. Another thing I found interesting is was the pie chart for why people are locked up and seeing that state prison holds the most people and most of them are in there for violence which is assault, robbery rape, manslaughter, and murder is really heartbreaking. Every year, over 600,000 people enter prison gates, but people go to jail 10.6 million times each year. Some people aren’t made for prison they only need to get locked up one time and see how it actually is and they’ll never return again. Jail either build you or break you, it's not made for everybody.I also find it surprising that only 13,000 people are being held by Immigration and Customs enforcement surprises me because millions of people have illegally crossed our borders and only 13,000 get caught. Police make over 1 million drug arrest each year, i think police departments should ease up on the drug arrests and start sending people to mental health facilities to wing them off drugs and provide them the health they need instead of punishing them for using it and god more tough on crime like they say.-KenzieLand002
The American criminal justice system holds almost 2.3 million people in 1,719 state prisons, 109 federal prisons, 1,772 juvenile correctional facilities, 3,163 local jails, and 80 Indian Country jails as well as in military prisons, immigration detention facilities, civil commitment centers, state psychiatric hospitals, and prisons in the U.S. territories. 540,000 people locked in jail until bail or trial. Another thing that I read was that 1 in 10 juveniles are incarcerated at some point and that is a number that is very concerning because they are being locked inside an adult prison or jail. Another thing that I found interesting in his article is that 1 in 10 juveniles are either in an adult jail or prison. This is not good because they will be taken advantage of badly and that is not good. It is also crazy that 63,000 youth are locked up. This is a sad statistic. Net jail growth is caused due to pretrial detention. Something disturbing is that why most people are held in jail for pretrial is because they do not have enough money to bail themselves out of jail even if they are innocent. Another thing I found interesting is that only 8% of prisoners are held in private prisons. 76% of people being held in jail are not convicted of any crimes. We have over 10.6 million people go to jail every year. Police make over 1 million drug arrest each year. 1 in 5 people are incarcerated on a drug offense. 8,100 youth behind bars for technical violations of their probation, rather than for a new offense.-CUBSFAN002
When reading this article I was not very surprised by some of these facts. For example, every year over 600,000 people enter prison gates, but people go to jail 10.6 million times each year. This was not surprising because, from what I learned in corrections last semester, a lot of people go to jail every year and every day. Another fact that I learned from this article is how many people from jails to prisons around the United States of America enter each year. The American criminal justice system every year almost 2.3 million people in 1,719 state prisons, 109 federal prisons, 1,772 juvenile correctional facilities, 3,163 local jails, and 80 Indian Country jails as well as in military prisons, immigration detention facilities, civil commitment centers, state psychiatric hospitals, and prisons in the U.S. territories. What I found interesting about this is that a) there are that many state and federal prisons in the United States of America and b) how many people enter each year. I also found out that ‘jail churn’ is particularly high because most people in jails have not been convicted. From my knowledge from last semester in corrections class many of the people in jail are either waiting for bail to be posted or are waiting for their day in court. They’re not there because they were/ have been convicted of a crime, but because they are waiting to get out. Another fact that I learn while reading this article is that, to go along with the last fact, only a small number (which is less than 150,000 on an average day) have been convicted, and are generally serving misdemeanors sentences under a year. Also most are too poor to avoided being in jail for days or weeks, so they are stuck there till it is their day in court. I also learned that overcriminalization of drug use, use of private prisons, and low-paid or unpaid prison labor are among the most contentious issues in criminal justice system. They are a moral outrage. Also, I learned that alternatives to going to jail or prison, such as prole, probation, etc., are designed so that the person getting out goes back to prison. What I found most surprising is how many illegal immigrants are detained each year. Over 49,000 people are detained by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) not for any crime, but simply for their undocumented immigrant status. I knew that people coming in illegally are detained, I didn’t know how many each year are being held. To go along with that, I also learned that, according to the article, “11,800 unaccompanied children are held in the custody of the Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR), awaiting placement with parents, family members, or friends. While these children are not held for any criminal or delinquent offense, most are held in shelters or even juvenile placement facilities under detention-like conditions”. The number of people who are commited to psychiatric hospitals each year surprised me the most. About 22,000 people are involuntarily detained or committed to state psychiatric hospitals, many of whom, these people are not even convicted, and some are held indefinitely. This next one didn’t surprise me because I learned this last semester in corrections class. The final fact that I learned from this article is that the most impacted people in this policy change is those in poverty. This is not suprising to me, but this needs to change or this will just keep happening or getting worse. –Adventureflight002
This article talks about mass incarceration and the statistics that go with it. There are 612,000 people in local jails. This is a lot more than I thought there was considering there are so many in federal and state prisons. I was very surprised that there are so many people arrested for property crime. A big section of the local jails. In the federal prisons and jails there are several convicted people for public order crimes which I find interesting. When I think of public order crimes I don’t really think about crimes that would land you in a federal prison. I think that most of these public order crimes are found in the jails and not so much the prisons. Out of the 46,000 youth that are incarcerated there are 2,500 for drug charges. That’s really sad to see that so many kids are getting into drugs and getting put into jail or prison for them. I think that we should be very lenient with kids when we are dealing with drug charges. Kids on drugs are a very tricky thing and the reason they are doing them is probably a reason that we don’t entertain enough. I hope that we are doing more to incarcerate the sellers of these drugs and not the kids hooked on them. There are 61000 kids in immigration detention which is also sad to see. These kids are just trying to get into America and get a better life for themselves and their families but probably don’t know how to do it legally. Over 540,000 people are locked up and haven’t been convicted which makes me wonder how many of these cases haven’t been looked into enough. We should really look into these types of cases because innocent people in jail or prison isn’t good. Celtics002
In the article about mass incarceration it states facts about what are the most important reasons of the overpopulation of inmates in correctional facilities. There are myths that have partial truth as to reason to mass incarceration but doesn’t help solve the problem. One of them is “nonviolent drug offenders”, which states that the less people are arrest for low level drug possessions there would be less incarceration. Logically yes it would decrease population in jails, but there are far more violent and property crime offenders that take up most of the population. Another reason is “Expanding community supervision”, probation and parole are alternatives instead of being incarcerated. The rules in those alternatives are often seen as if they are made to make offenders fail, which lead to being sent back to jail. When being in probation or parole it would be more productive with rewarding for accomplishments instead at looking at mistake. There is a constant cycle of the same offenders ending up in jail because of violations in their parole. When weren’t they properly rehabilitated to not violate them and become a proper returning citizen. Which also doesn’t help with the fact of private prison and the profit that is behind it. Private prisons don’t want to help inmates return home and not reoffend because of them they make money. But not only private prisons make money off the amount of inmates but also public agencies that rent out space to house inmates in public jails. dory002
I do not think people understand how bad private prisons actually are. They are really robbing the state of money and they even said in the article how it is like a parasite. Private prisons are also more likely to bring up law cases involving people being sued. People can be rehabilitated and I think a lot of those in the justice system do not understand that people can be rehabilitated. Grnated, some people cannot be and are too far gone to do so but this is where the risk assessments come in handy and take place. -holywaffles002
Something I didn't know was that police officers make over one million drug possession arrests each year. A lot of these people do go to prison over these drug arrests. I started thinking about how this can be a never ending cycle. Once these people complete their prison sentence over the drug possession, it will show up on their records. This can make it extremely difficult for them to find jobs. If they can't find jobs, they could be tempted to start selling drugs on the streets if they were a drug dealer or decided to become one. If they start selling drugs on the street then they could possibly go back to prison. If they are not given the things they need to succeed, it can be difficult to end the cycle. I’m not saying that this cycle is impossible to stop but it can be very difficult. Since the War On Drugs is still going on, I always thought that there were more people in jail for drugs then violent and property offenses. I learned that jail and prison telecom and commissary functions have created multi-billion dollar private industries. I knew that there are some jobs in prisons that pay a little but I didn't know that five of the states don't pay the inmates for the jobs that are normally paid. I also didn't know that some of the prisons paid $3.45 per day. That’s the highest number I’ve seen. After reading about how probation, parole, and pretrial supervision can be a way to set people up to fail, I never really looked at it that way. Depending on the level of probation a person is on, I think locking someone up for being a little late for curfew might be a little extreme. If it was a first or second time and they were spaced out, I don't really see an issue. But if it’s a consistent problem, that might be a little different. I thought it was interesting how people that are convicted of homicide or sexual assault are least likely to reoffend after their release. I also thought it was interesting how people that were convicted of sexual assault or rape have a rearrest rate that is around 30-50% lower compared to people that are convicted of motor vehicle theft or larceny. I thought that they people that were convicted of homicide, sexual assault, or rape had a higher rearrest rate. I heard someone say that it’s almost impossible to rehabiliate a seaxual predator and I’m wondering if that is still true. Something I didn't know that I found interesting is that a juvenile could be locked up for truancy. I thought it was interesting that some juvenile facilities operate and look like prisons and jails. Putting minors in places that reflect prisons and jails can be a step in the wrong direction. It’s better to rehabilitate them at this age because they’re still young. Prisons and jails can be a rough place and that can possible make them worse. -Soccer002
I think this article in incredibly important because I truly learned quite a bit from reading this all. Ten facts I found interesting from this article are 2.3 million people are currently incarcerated in the United States. 600,000 people enter prison gates but people go to jail 10.6 million times each year. I think this amount is so excessive. It is a number you absolutely would not have even thought was at for our justice system, at least I did not. At state and local levels, far more people are locked up for property and petty offenses rather than drugs or for violent crimes. One in in five incarcerated people are locked up for a drug offense. This did not surprise me because we have learned in classes that a lot of people are locked up for drug , people were incarcerated for technical violations of probation and parole. offenses and other petty crimes. On average, incarcerated people earn 86 cents to upwards of $3.45 for prison jobs. In 2016, 168,000 people incarcerated for technical violations of probation and parole. People convicted of homicide are among the least likely to re-offend after release. This does not surprise me either because of what we have learned in class. The convicted offenders of rape or sexual assault have re-arrest rates of roughly 30-50% lower than people convicted of larceny or motor vehicle theft. The last thing I found super interesting was that approximately 2200 youth locked up for "status" offenses which are behaviors that are not law violations but instead more so along the lines of truancy and running away. -holywaffles002
This article runs into the same issue that usually plagues these types of articles. It begins with an agenda, specifically with the supposition that 2.3 million people being incarcerated is necessarily wrong, because incarceration is itself an evil. The number itself is large, but given the size of the United States and the number of offenders in the public sphere, 2.3 million may simply be an example of the justice system working as designed to punish people that society wants punished. For instance, while I am personally for ending the drug war, on all fronts, full stop, that isn’t what society wants. In the 1980’s, crack cocaine was the new plague, and everyone rallied the troops to defeat it. New laws were brought to bear on this menace, especially by congressmembers whose districts were particularly beset by it. This included Congress’ Black Caucus, who took strident measures in an effort to stem the flow of crack cocaine into their home territories. What happened is somewhat predictable in retrospect. The penalties increased, but failed to curb demand, and demand drew supply. It’s the classical story of Prohibition – the government cannot actually stop a market conducted without the government’s knowledge. We see it now repeated with the heroin epidemic, which I predict will have similar results. The only way forward that I see is by ending the drug war completely, legalizing and managing it in a way that saves the most lives. There is no putting this genie back into the bottle, we can only try to prevent as much of its havoc as possible. The problems of prison industry are traceable back to the Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution – the Congress of the 1860’s decided that convicts would best be put to use as labor, rather than remaining idle, and now we reap the consequences of that decision. Perhaps it is time to reconsider whether the government of the living by the dead is a system worth preserving at all. – Arsenal002
This article runs into the same issue that usually plagues these types of articles. It begins with an agenda, specifically with the supposition that 2.3 million people being incarcerated is necessarily wrong, because incarceration is itself an evil. The number itself is large, but given the size of the United States and the number of offenders in the public sphere, 2.3 million may simply be an example of the justice system working as designed to punish people that society wants punished. For instance, while I am personally for ending the drug war, on all fronts, full stop, that isn’t what society wants. In the 1980’s, crack cocaine was the new plague, and everyone rallied the troops to defeat it. New laws were brought to bear on this menace, especially by congressmembers whose districts were particularly beset by it. This included Congress’ Black Caucus, who took strident measures in an effort to stem the flow of crack cocaine into their home territories. What happened is somewhat predictable in retrospect. The penalties increased, but failed to curb demand, and demand drew supply. It’s the classical story of Prohibition – the government cannot actually stop a market conducted without the government’s knowledge. We see it now repeated with the heroin epidemic, which I predict will have similar results. The only way forward that I see is by ending the drug war completely, legalizing and managing it in a way that saves the most lives. There is no putting this genie back into the bottle, we can only try to prevent as much of its havoc as possible. The problems of prison industry are traceable back to the Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution – the Congress of the 1860’s decided that convicts would best be put to use as labor, rather than remaining idle, and now we reap the consequences of that decision. Perhaps it is time to reconsider whether the government of the living by the dead is a system worth preserving at all. – Arsenal002
There were some awesome statistics shown in this article. I was able to find out how many people were incarcerated within state prisons, local jails, federal prisons, and others. One thing that I thought was crazy was just the amount of people within the system. Every time I see or hear about how many people are incarcerated in the United States, it always amazes me and not in a good way, but in a more I can not believe it sort of way. When I saw the graph which showed the population amount within the system it was jaw dropping because when you see a chart like this one, it is unbelievable almost. I like how it also mentions the amount of youths on the chart as well. When I was reading the article, it said that over six hundred thousand people enter into the prison system every year. That is ridiculous. We as a nation are obviously doing something wrong here. The only way to fix it is to come up with a plan and start using it instead of just waiting around doing nothing. I like how it mentioned the myths about mass incarceration. It was very eye opening since one of my topic papers is mass incarceration and how to reduce the overcrowdedness of prisons. I do have to say though, I think that we should release nonviolent drug offenders and put them on probation and make them attend daily meetings to get help with their problems until a certain period of time is up and then they can be released into society if they show improvement as a human being. -Anchorman002
I learned a lot by reading this report. Some things that I learned that surprised me were that 600,00 people enter prison each year. This astounds me that that many people get locked up a year in prison. Another thing that I found out that shocked me even more than that is that people go to jail 10.6 million times each year. This number dumbfounded me until I thought about and people that are in jail could just spend the night, and that would count so that would make sense. Another thing that I found interesting in his article is that 1 in 10 juveniles are either in an adult jail or prison. This is not good because they will be taken advantage of badly and that is not good. It is also crazy that 63,000 youth are locked up. This is a sad statistic. Net jail growth is caused due to pretrial detention. Something disturbing is that why most people are held in jail for pretrial is because they do not have enough money to bail themselves out of jail even if they are innocent. Going along with that same theme is that 76% of people being held in jail are not convicted of any crimes. Another thing I found interesting is that only 8% of prisoners are held in private prisons. This really surprised me because people make such a big deal out of them and it is the topic of our class paper and to find out that only 8% are locked up in a private prison is surprising to me. I also find it surprising that only 13,000 people are being held by Immigration and Customs enforcement surprises me because millions of people have illegally crossed our borders and only 13,000 get caught just does not seem right to me. -Legion001
ReplyDeleteI was also amazed that 600,000 people enter prison each year, I think we need to do something to lower that number. Wether they get sentenced or not we need to make some sort of changes to lower our mass incarceration rates. Especially for low level crimes, where the criminal is only hurting himself. I was also amazed at the number of people who go to prison each year, that is every 1 in 5 people in the us that go to jail. I also though that immigration, and customs had a higher amount of our incarceration rates. 13,000 really isn't that much.
DeleteI-Like-Cereal002
While most of these numbers are very shocking, we need to look at this in retrospect to what our incarceration used to look like. The number may be very large and I agree that we need to continue to try and drop our rates, it still is much smaller than it used to be over 20 years ago. These charts not only gave visual representation to what these number look like as a whole but also showed how the get tough on crime laws with drug offenses really affected society. We have been steadily working toward dropping much of the original laws but still have a long way to go before we reach optimal effectiveness of our corrections system. -Blues001
DeleteI was shocked to read that 600,000 people enter prison each year. I think changes could be made to lower that number to a more respectable number. Wether they get sentenced or not we need to make some sort of changes to lower our mass incarceration rates based on the crimes that occur and other things that contribute to incarceration. I think that possibly changing some of the drug laws in our country would lower some of the rates because of how high drug arrests are. -CUBSFAN002
DeleteThis article was a very interesting read, it opened my eyes up to a lot of things that I did not know before reading this article. I did not know that most people in jail are being held because they are awaiting trial, and have not been sentenced yet. Most of America's mass incarceration is drug related, or due to the war on drugs. Every year over 600,000 people enter the prison gates, that number is actually amazing, and I guarantee you these people going to jail are going on low level crimes related to drugs. 540,000 people who are locked up are on pre-trial. I think we need to find a way to make the trial process more quicker, so we can lower our incarceration rate. 451,000 people are incarcerated everyday for nonviolent drug crimes. That number is insane. It is amazing that many people are being put in jail everyday just for having weed on them. Sure they will probably get out of jail within 10 hours of their booking, but they are still going to jail. There is 98,698 people going from probation back to incarceration every year. I feel like that number is large, but not too significant. I feel like our probation system is working very well. We have 3.6 million people on probation every year. I think probation should be used even more. It works better than prison, and I think it will shrink our recidivism rate. We have over 10.6 million people go to jail every year. Police make over 1 million drug arrest each year, I think we should loosen up the strictness of our drug laws. 1 in 5 people are incarcerated on a drug offense. I am just curious if all these people who are locked up on drug crimes get sentenced or not.
ReplyDeleteI-Like-Cereal002
I agree that this article was very interesting and it also opened my eyes to the real problem of mass incarceration. I was shocked when I read that 600,000 people every year enter the prison gates. I also had no idea that 540,000 are waiting to go to trial. 451,000 are incarcerated everyday for nonviolent crimes. But did you actually know that releasing violent criminals would actually help reduce the mass incarceration problem? The article claims that they are the most unlikely to commit another act of violence. The same goes for people who have commited sex crimes as well. Overall, I liked what you had to say in your blog. However, I disagree about the probation system working. I believe a lot of times that probation sets people up to fail. -pizza002
DeleteMass Incarceration is a concerning issue right now. Although the crime rate is going down, we can make it decrease even more by reducing the silly misdemeanors or even the low offense crimes. According to prisonpolicy.org, “ The American criminal justice system holds almost 2.3 million people in 1,719 state prisons, 109 federal prisons, 1,772 juvenile correctional facilities, 3,163 local jails, and 80 Indian Country jails as well as in military prisons, immigration detention facilities, civil commitment centers, state psychiatric hospitals, and prisons in the U.S. territories.” Every year, over 600,000 people enter prison gates, but people go to jail 10.6 million times each year. This number is very high. If we start fining people for their low drug offenses, or fine people for misdemeanors than the crime rate will go down. Most people that get locked up end up losing everything that they have. So therefore, we can aid in a rehabilitation center in helping past offenders start their life over. Help them get a job, give them food, and a roof over their head. If not, they are then just going to keep offending to be put in jail so they have the necessities in order to survive. Policy changes that will end mass incarceration is up for the public to have knowledge and put the situation into perspective about mass incarceration. Yes, drug crimes are very common but there are far more violent and property offenses than drug offenses. One in five inmates are locked up for drug offenses. One main myth is that all prisons are factories behind the gates. This is incorrect, they may have jobs inside the prisons that require factory like work, but this is the only way inmates would be able to pay for compensatory. It also gives them a perspective of a real job and they can take that experience and be able to apply it to a real job. Mass incarceration is slowing decreasing, we need to keep persevering in the direction of helping others/offenders that come out so they don’t repeat the process of going back to prison. #notaplumber002
ReplyDeleteI agree with you when you say we should fine instead of incarcerate those low risk drug offenders and misdemeanor criminals therefore directly decreasing the incarceration rate. It is not like they will get put on probation and if they commit a technical violation, they will get sent to jail. I also agree with you that when we incarcerate people, do not just lock them up and let them sit there. Rehabilitate them by giving them a job to pay for a house and food, but then again that also brings up the issue of money. We do not have the financial stability to rehabilitate every offender in our corrections system. -lilbaby001
DeleteBefore reading this report I have seen and read that our incarceration rates have been dropping since the days of Mass Incarceration, but these numbers are still very high and shocking. Seeing that 600,000 people go into a prison is a very stunning number but seeing that the jails number is 10.6 million was even more concerning. Despite the jails number being that high due to those awaiting trial due to not being able to afford bail, that number still appears to be larger than it should be if we plan to drop our incarceration rates. Another thing that I read was that police officers nationwide make over 1 million drug arrests each year and it says that can lead to a future of problems for those people. I agree with that because a nonviolent drug conviction can cause a snowball affect on someones life, ruining job prospects, and which usually results in re offense or harsher second time offense sentences. This report also showed that pretrial detention results in 540,000 people locked in jail until bail or trial and that is what I just previously stated that it not only can ruin a life but also costs the jail more money having to house an inmate who could potentially be impoverished and can not afford bail. Another thing that I read was that 1 in 10 juveniles are incarcerated at some point and that is a number that is very concerning because they are being locked inside an adult prison or jail. While the "out of sight and out of hearing" applies to these juveniles it is still unnerving to think that someone young can be inside an establishment with grown men with nothing to lose. The report also showed that 1 in 5 individuals locked up are for drug offenses which are non violent crimes. While that number may not be as shocking as some of the others it still shows the echo of the 80's era "Get tough on crime" laws. Seeing that the majority of juveniles who are locked up have not even been committed is quite confusing to me because if the initiative is to prevent future crimes then these kids need to have alternate programs in order to avoid a future of crime. The most shocking number to me was that there are 3.6 million people on probation which is such a large amount of the population of our country all being controlled by our corrections system. -Blues001
ReplyDeleteI agree that even if we let out non-violent drug offenders, if we keep having officers arrest drug offenders we will be doing but temporarily slow down the endless cycle. It is imperative that the war on drugs at least shifts focus from small time drugs like weed to something more major that has more of an impact in someone's life. I am not entirely sure how to deal with all the people who are awaiting trial in jail that can not afford bail. Should we just treat drug offenses like speeding tickets where there is no jail time? It is a very interesting subject that we as a society must answer in order to get any change. Jackrabbit001
DeleteI found the five myths about mass incarceration in this article to be very interesting. The first “myth” about releasing non-violent drug offenders would end mass incarceration. As they put it and the article this is a myth because far more people are incarcerated for violent crimes or property crimes. The second “myth” is that private prisons are responsible for mass incarceration. While it really sucks that private prisons profit off of others misfortune or poor decisions, private prisons only represent 8% of the prison populations. The third myth describes prisons as factories where the workers are treated like slaves. The truth is that prisons do rely on prisoners to do things like serve food and do laundry and they do earn wages but these wages are very low and don't amount to much. The fourth myth states that expanding community supervision is the best way to reduce incarceration. Community supervision includes parole, probation, and pretrial supervision. The conditions required by probation or parole are often times too strict and set the person up for failure. Finally v myth States people in prison for violent or sexual crimes are too dangerous to be released. Apparently people who are convicted of homicide are the least likely to be re-arrested. People convicted of rape or sexual assault also apparently have lower re-arrest rates as opposed to people who might commit motor vehicle theft. With this myth I think they're too concerned about the idea of them reoffending and not concerned enough with what they did in the first place deserve their sentence. I feel like if someone takes another person's life or rapes a person they deserve to and spend a long time in prison. Even if they got out of prison they should have to bear that mark somehow I think even if they never re-offended. Maybe that's not fair but that's just my opinion. -waterboy001
ReplyDeleteI had no idea that so many people were detained for pretrial. Over 540,000 people who might be innocent. I understand that many people can not afford bail but it does not seem justly to lock up people awaiting trial when the case against them is not even that strong. The first "myth" that releasing non-violent drug offenders would fix the problem is not true. The way the media talks about it it makes me feel that if we released all non-violent drug offenders that it would instantly cure our crowding problem over night. I also had believed that community supervision would be a great way to reduce incarceration. That statistics on that tell me otherwise. I find it interesting to see how many youths are in prison or jail just due to status offenses or non-violent crimes. It makes me really believe that age has to much control over our criminal justice system. Adding on to that point, seeing how many adults that are incarcerated due to a technical violation of parole or probation is insane. To know that most did not actually commit another crime but just violated curfew is interesting. This quote "poverty is not only a predictor of incarceration; it is also frequently the outcome," is very interesting to me because that is a real life problem that we should work on fixing moving forward. To me, it feels like a game where only the rich can play and come out on top. I understand that we are trying to hit people where it hurts them but sometimes it feels as if the criminal justice system can go to far when impacting the lives of people who are not affluent. Jackrabbit001
ReplyDeleteI rely like how you mentioned that the media makes it seem like the majority of prisoners are locked up because of drug related offenses. I honestly used to think that most people in prison were just people who made a mistake involving drugs when they were younger. This makes me wonder how the majority of people in the U.S. see prison due to the way media portrays it. I wish more people would do their research on issues like this rather than just listening to the news. Sexy_in_bikini001
DeleteThis article opened my eyes to a lot. They start my explaining how there is no easy way to answer the hard questions such as “Can it really be true that most people in jail are being held before trial?”. I’m glad that they pointed that out at the beginning, because a lot of people claim to know the answers to all the hard questions. This writer kept it honest and down to the facts. The first thing that really captured my attention was how many people were in our jails and prisons. Not only how many people were in there, but also how many detention centers we have here in the U.S. It’s sad that we need so many, and its sad that we are so comfortable throwing people into these facilities rather than offering more rehabilitation options. The next thing that I found interesting was the pie chart of people in various detention centers for various crimes. Prisons primarily consist of drug related or violent offenders while local jails have the majority of people in there as “not convicted”. This means that they are awaiting trial. However, one can pay bail to get out early to wait for their trial rather than staying locked behind bars. However, many people can’t afford bail and are forced to stay behind bars. The next interesting thing that I noticed was how nearly half a million people have been incarcerated for some form of drug offense. While this number is large, many people in prison are there for violent offenses. Something else that I didn’t know was that less than 8% of people who are incarcerated are sent to private prisons. Id expect more to be in there considering how much I’m always hearing about them. Over all this article has been very informative and cleared up, and made me more aware, of issues in our corrections system. Sexy_in_bikini 001
ReplyDeleteI was also surprised when i saw that 8% of inmates are in private prisons. Yet, that doesn’t change the fact that even some public jails are paid by other prisons to house inmates. They make money off of them. So just like private prisons are focused on money and less rehabilitation, I wonder if the same public ones are also in it for the money. I also found interesting the different myth that correlated with overcrowding in prison but isn't the main reason as to why it is. dory002
DeleteAs I am reading this article, I have come to some conclusions in my head about the technical violations during probation. According to the article, it says that it is a myth we put people on probation to lessen mass incarceration for the reason of we are setting them up for failure. If an individual is on probation and they commit a technical violation while on probation, we send them to prison therefore raising the incarceration rate. If this is the case, what I would do is maybe give the probationer a couple chances before sending them to jail, therefore directly decreasing the rate of mass incarceration. If it is a violent offense while on probation, going straight to jail would be necessary but for technical violations like being out past curfew or hanging out with their friends when they are not supposed to, we need to think about giving the probationer a few chances. The United States locks up more people per capita than any other nation, which is a direct correlation to why we are facing problems with mass incarceration. This article provides five myths as to why we face mass incarceration and provides the facts as to why we do face it. One of the outstanding myths that surprised me was that releasing non-violent drug offenders would end mass incarceration. This surprises me because it seems like majority of offenders in corrections committed a drug related crime. Obviously, this will not solve all of our problems with mass incarceration, but I think that it could definitely solve some. It is said that at state and local levels more people are incarcerated for violent and property offenses rather than drug offenses. To end this problem at the state and local level, our reforms would have to go further than just petty drug offenses. Overall, this article has given me a bigger picture of mass incarceration and our corrections systems. -lilbaby001
ReplyDeleteFun fact, this is actually one of my articles for my paper on Mass Incarceration! From my knowledge on this article it is full of statistics and it breaks down and explains a lot of issues and numbers to the public eye. The most interesting facts I found today were: The American criminal justice system holds almost 2.3 million people in 1,719 state prisons, 109 federal prisons, 1,772 juvenile correctional facilities, 3,163 local jails, and 80 Indian Country jails as well as in military prisons, immigration detention facilities, civil commitment centers, state psychiatric hospitals, and prisons in the U.S. territories. It is inane knowing that we hold almost 2.3 MILLION people in a prison, juvenile facility, jails, and military prisons. That is insane. Every year, over 600,000 people enter prison gates, but people go to jail 10.6 million times each year. These numbers are huge. Drug offenses still account for the incarceration of almost half a million people, and nonviolent drug convictions remain a defining feature of the federal prison system. It is sad to think that drug offenses makeup so much of our prison population. incarcerated people earn between 86 cents and $3.45 per day for the most common prison jobs. That is crazy! 86 to $3.45 per day is sad! at least 168,000 people were incarcerated for such “technical violations” of probation or parole – that is, not for any new crime. This is crazy! People convicted of homicide are the least likely to be re-arrested, and those convicted of rape or sexual assault have re-arrest rates roughly 30-50% lower than people convicted of larceny or motor vehicle theft. This is disturbing. 8,100 youth behind bars for technical violations of their probation, rather than for a new offense. This is sad. Another 49,000 people are civilly detained by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) not for any crime, but simply for their undocumented immigrant status. THIS IS SAD. 22,000 people are involuntarily detained or committed to state psychiatric hospitals and civil commitment centers. involuntarily :/ This article is very factual and helpful. -freckles001
ReplyDeleteWhen thinking about Mass Incarceration, we must consider the facts and data at hand. Our jails and prisons are over populated. Many of the people who are imprisoned are people of color and for minor charges. Majority of people who are incarcerated are there for war on drugs. There was a report done and roughly in The American criminal justice system we hold nearly 2.3 million people in 1,719 state prisons, 109 federal prisons, 1,772 juvenile correctional facilities, 3,163 local jails, and 80 Indian Country jails as well as in military prisons, immigration detention facilities, civil commitment centers, state psychiatric hospitals, and prisons in the U.S. territories. This is alarming. It seems as though; our society would rather incarcerate somebody instead of help them. There are programs that are centered towards helping people get back on the straight and narrow path. Many people who are incarcerated in jail are simply waiting to see the judge. Many times, when the person is first brought into the jail, there are multiple charges. However; once they finally see the judge, many times there is only one or two charges brought up at trial. Many reasons for lack of evidence. It seems as though, jail is simply a place where we warehouse someone for a certain amount of time. The article talks about five myths. The first is Releasing “nonviolent drug offenders” would end mass incarceration. It is false, because at least half of the people whoa re incarcerated have been arrested for a simple drug possession. Secondly, Private prisons are the corrupt heart of mass incarceration. This is false, because less than eight percent of inmates are incarcerated in private jails. Thirdly, Prisons are “factories behind fences” that exist to provide companies with a huge slave labor force. There is only roughly five thousand people who are incarcerated who are employed by private companies. Many inmates are paid less than a dollar a day to preform duties. Fourthly, expanding community supervision is the best way to reduce incarceration. Many of those who are on supervision tend to fail, because the rules they have to live by are too extreme. Finally, people in prison for violent or sexual crimes are too dangerous to be released. People who are convicted of serious crimes are least likely to be re-arrested. Illinigurl002
ReplyDeleteMass incarceration is a very hot topic within the criminal justice community as of late. Though we all seem to have ideas about what it all means, it almost seems like no one can quite pinpoint what is causing the issue at hand. That is because it is not just one specific thing, and this article breaks it down for us. First, it is pointed out that there are many systems of confinement that we seemingly forget about. You think mass incarceration, and your head goes straight to prisons. Why do we not think of juvenile detention, immigration detention, military prisons, Indian country jails, state psychiatric hospitals, civil commitment centers and even the common jails? Though over 600,000 people go to prison every year, people are going to jail over ten million times a year. What a lot of people don't understand is that not every person that goes to jail has been convicted of a crime. Many people that go to jail get out within hours or days on bail, and some are too poor to get out on bail so just end up staying behind bars until their trial. Less than 150,000 people put in jail annually are convicted and made to serve out their time for a misdemeanor crime. There is another population of nearly 50,000 people locked up every year. Not for crime, but because of their lack of documentation concerning their immigrant status. Those people are held by Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Another group of involuntarily held individuals is the 22,000 people committed to state psychiatric facilities and commitment centers annually. All in all this article was very eye opening and shed light on the darkest place in criminal justice, mass incarceration. -psych001
ReplyDeleteIt’s really true that most people in the jail are being held before trial. Just having a criminal record can reduce the likelihood of a callback for a job offer by nearly fifty percent. The negative impact of a criminal record is twice as large for African American applicants. Some have said that the war on drugs is responsible for America's massive prison and jail populations. And while this rings true in many federal prisons where nearly half of all inmates are locked up for drug charges. More people are in jail waiting for trial then there are people in jail that already have had there trial which means the people waiting for a trial had to wait to prove that they are innocent and once they prove that they are innocent if they are then they get a trial and they have already missed so much time from there life and families lives which is truly sad. The expense produced by these overcrowded prisons cost the country a substantial amount of money every single year. Although people are incarcerated for a number of reasons, the country’s prisons are focused on punishment rather than reform, and the result is a misguided system that fails to rehabilitate criminals or discourage crime. Society needs to understand that incarcerating an individual not only effects the the person in jail but it affects there kids, parents, spouse, and just so many other people. The incarnation fact is most people are sitting in jail waiting on a trail date missing time with there kids and family for a small crime which can probably be justified or may result in little after the years he/she already spend in jail. Or they are waiting for a trial for a crime that they may have not even committed. Batman002
ReplyDeleteReading the article “Mass Incarceration: The Whole Pie 2019” I feel the U.S. should take notes from the Dutch criminal justice system. Dutch prisons are empty, so empty that they are turning some of the buildings into refugee housing. This is due to their court systems relaxed drug laws and focus on rehabilitation. A prison sentence should not be looked at as a form of rehabilitation when most prisons in America do not offer any sort of treatment such as educational services, mental health services or trade schools. This is why we have the largest incarceration rates. As the article states the U.S has 2.3 million people incarcerated in our 1,719 state prison, 109 federal prisons, 1,772 juvenile facilities, 3,163 local jails, 80 Indian Country jails, as well as military prisons, and immigration detention facilities. What is concerning is that just in our local jails 540 thousand inmates have not even been convicted and are pretrial inmates. With these raising numbers I feel like all of the U.S could benefit from the “Bail Reform Act” that was implemented in Illinois at the beginning of 2017. The act “does not focus on a person's wealth and ability to afford monetary bail but shall instead focus on a person's threat to public safety or risk of failure to appear before a court of appropriate jurisdiction.” With this anyone that is incarcerated on a category B offense and a class A misdemeanor shall receive 30 dollars a day towards their total cash bond. For example if a person is arrested on simple battery the bond is normally one thousand ten percent. Meaning to bond or get out of jail that person would need 100 dollars cash. With the bail reform act this person if unable to post the 100 dollars cash could sit in jail for three days and then be release with a notice to appear in court. This would then reduce mass incarceration for petty misdemeanor offenses. Jadist002
ReplyDeleteI agree that we should look into other countries policies and learn from them. The US justice system is great but it definitely has it’s problems. I think that we should maybe look at countries that are similar to our situation or have been in the past. Dutch prisons are very empty, and ours are way to full so it would be hard to take any policies that they have and relate them to ours. Instead I think that we should look at a country that is more similar to ours so that we can see what works for them and try it in ways here.-Celtics001
DeletePrisons do work in the sense that it locks up so that the offender wont then commit crimes, at least against the general public. Yet it fails to change behavior. Despite multiple new laws, and successful politicians passing tough and tougher sentence, offender still reoffend upon release. It is a disappointing fact that released prisoners in this country reoffending rate of approximately 70 percent. the statistics on prison reoffending are overwhelming bad. Of course the public does not want the authority to be soft on prisoners. the justice needs to command the respect and confidence of people. punishment and the deprivation of liberty are clearly the starting point. Prisons fail to rehabilitate offenders fundamentally because they do not focus enough on doing so. estimates show that roughly 50 percent of U.S prison inmate are drug offenders. To address the ever resolving door of drug abuse and incarceration, the national drug control strategy supports treatment over imprisonment for nonviolent offenders within criminal justice system GUSII 002
ReplyDeletePeople who commit violent crimes such as murder or rape I agree they should go to prison, Nut I do not agree that prison works for everyone. In prison what are you doing? Sitting there with idle time and time. Are you learning anything? A trade, getting an education or any life skills programs? I feel we will never be effective in the criminal justice system until we attack these areas. You cant just place someone in prison and expect them to change if you do not give them a new outlook on life and show them there is something better they can do with there life. Now I not saying there are some that have mental health issues and some that are so far gone that you will not be able to reach them, but there are still people you can reach and want the help. Jadist002
DeleteI think a lot of times we look at the problem of mass incarceration and jump straight to prisons, sentencing laws, and drug laws but as this article points most people who are in prison are indeed in there for violent or property crime and those are the kind of people we all mostly agree should be locked up. While it's logical to look there I think one thing a lot of people miss in the discussion is talking about how to prevent these crimes in the first place. I feel as though if we would invest time and energy into creating better social structures for people and into getting people mental health treatment we could reduce the prison population by quite a bit. Of course that is something that takes years to see the results of. I also think there are things we could do right now to help like getting rid of private prisons, decriminalizing drugs, get rid of mandatory sentencing, etc etc. But as the article points out those are smaller pieces of a much bigger puzzle I just think those are things we can do now to at least help
DeleteAvatar002
Mass incarceration was a result of the war on drugs in the 80’s, but now some states are not focused on that in order to reduce mass incarceration. The article focused on where and why the US has mass incarceration in the first place and what is a way to reduce it, without stating facts that can’t help with it. For example, it mentioned war on drugs, private prisons, and supervisions like probation, explain why some inmates are in prison but there no way to help reduce it with those facts as to what I understood from the article. Mass incarceration as stated in the text, is about 2.3 million people, which most are not even convitioned yet. 76% of the population in jails are inmates that have not yet been convicted of a crime. As i read the text, I saw that local jails are like the “front doors” to the whole system. People are arrested and most can not afford bail and are waiting for there trial. Which I think that is something very unfair especially when some arrest are from poor communities. I think mass incarceration comes from having a constant cycle of the offenders that are not given the proper rehabilitation in order to not reoffend. When it comes to probation, which ideally is better than being locked up is seen as alternative that is still lead to prison. What I found most interesting was how the article mentioned that most people that are incarcerated for serious offenses like murder or sexual crimes, when they are let out they are less likely to reoffend. Yet, there are longer and harsher punishments compared to the nonviolent crimes. taco001
ReplyDeleteI sometimes see bail as unfair when it comes to the different working classes. If someone gets arrested and they’re higher class, they probably will not have a problem paying their bail. If someone gets arrested and they’re lower class, they might have a problem with paying their bill. The person that is lower class might be automatically stuck there. They might not of even done anything wrong. I don’t agree with the non violent crimes being punished longer or harsher. Law enforcement wants to keep out streets safe but they want to incarcerate the non violent offenders longer. If the person is non violent, they probably won’t be threat to our society. -Soccer002
DeletePrisons have lost sight of what is important. Rehabilitation has almost become a thing of the past and we would rather have people who come in stay in. America has become so tough on crime and it has been detrimental to the system. Those who are released are likely to reoffend at such a high rate. But what will it show if we relax and become more laid back on crime and offenders. There are still programs to where they are able to earn a ged and in some cases a diploma. But people who have already been through those programs and come back in have nothing left. And drug abuse will always be the constant that you see in people that reoffend. Laws are changing to help that as of recent. The Weed laws have become much more lax and you do not see as many people coming back in for that. I think we need to rethink treatment of non violent offenders and look at the specifics of their case.-Purdue001
ReplyDeleteI learned a lot from reading the Mass Incarceration Article, the few things I didn’t know about were that over 540,000 people are behind bars and they haven’t been convicted or sentenced. The reason for this is because many people are in local jails because they can’t pay the bail amount, the median bail amount is ten thousand for felonies which most people make that in about eight months. It is so difficult to get a speedy trial. The youth make up fifteen thousand of the pretrial detention, psychiatric evaluation takes up nine thousand, and federal takes up fifty-one thousand. Another thing I didn’t know was that one in five people are locked up for drug incarceration, four hundred and fifty one thousand are incarcerated for non-violent drug offenses every day. Less than eight percent of people who are incarcerated are in private prisons. Which is why publicly owned prisons and jails are so overpopulated. Ten thousand three hundred youths are locked up for offenses which aren’t even crimes. This is a major issue because when jails and prisons are overpopulated they are harder to control and the people who are innocent or have small crimes are being held for longer than they should for that crime. Ark002
ReplyDeleteThis article was really compelling and I learned a lot from reading it. For example, I learned that the American criminal justice system holds almost 2.3 million people in their 1,719 state prisons, 109 federal prisons, 1,772 juvenile correctional facilities, 3,163 local jails and 80 indian country jails. As well as military prisons, immigration detention facilities, civil commitment centers, state psychiatric hospitals, and prisons in the United States of America. That was extremely shocking for me, and I had no idea that the numbers were that high. It really opens your eyes to the mass incarceration problem in America. I also learned that there are five myths about mass incarceration. The first one being, that releasing non violent drug would help end the mass incarceration problem. That is a myth because far more people are in prison due to violent crimes than drug charges. So to really change the high levels are incarceration you’re gonna have to go for more than the “low hanging fruit”. Another fact I learned is that 1 in 5 people are locked up for charges related to drugs. The second myth that I learned is that private prisons are the main reason for mass incarceration. In reality, less than 8 percent of all incarcerated people are held in a private facility. Private prisons profit from mass incarceration, so yes it is a problem. However Private prisons are a parasite and not the true root of the problem. Another myth that the article proved wrong is that prisons provide companies with slave labor. Essentially, companies that use prison labor are not what causes mass incarceration, and they aren’t even the source of all prison jobs. Only 5,000 people, less than 1 percent, are employed through private companies, and they are required to pay them minimum wage. The fourth myth is that expanding extended supervision is the best way to minimize incarceration. Community supervision is probation, parole, pretrial supervision, and they are often referred to as a incarceration alternative. Even though being free under these programs sounds better than being locked up, often times these programs set people up to fail. The fifth myth is that people in jail for violent or sexual offenses are to dangerous to be released. If we as a country are committed about ending mass incarceration we will have to change our response to violent crime. Data actually shows that people locked up for violent and sexual crimes are the least likely to recommit a crime. This article taught me a lot and there were ten main points that really stood out to me. Those ten points being, the American criminal justice system hold 2.3 million people, i learned that releasing non violent offenders will reduce mass incarceration is a myth, 1.5 people are locked up for drug charges, I learned that private prisons don't cause mass incarceration, less than 8 percent of prisons are private, i learned that prisons privind companies with slave labor is a myth, that only 5,000 inmates are employed through these companies, i also learned that is is a myth that expanding extended supervision is the best way to minimize incarceration, I also learned that things like probation and parole set the participants up to fail, lastly I learned that people who commit violent or sexual crime are among the most least likely to recommit a crime. -pizza002
ReplyDeleteThis article is all about incarceration and how it is spread throughout the country. One thing that I learned was that there are more people locked up in state prisons than any other type of jail or prison. The next most populated places are local jails and then federal prisons and jails. Out of the 1,306,000 people locked up in state prisons there are 712,000 locked up for violent crimes. The next most common is property and then drug charges. There are 198,000 people locked up in state prisons for drug charges which I definitely think needs to change. Out of all these people locked up for the drug charges there are probably very few that are violent offenders and are a danger to the community. If we took these people locked up for drug charges such as weed and coke and put them into rehabilitation programs then they could actually make something of their life and not be another reoffending statistic. Another fragment of the people in state prisons for drug charges are for possession of the drugs. That means that some of them aren’t even selling the drugs and have a legitimant addiction to the drug. These people are the ones that go into jail with an addiction and come back out with an addiction. We wonder why these people keep coming back to jail but it’s pretty easy to explain when you look at it like this. A lot of the problems in the criminal justice system is with drug offenses and how we take care of these people. 3.6 million of the 7 million people in the US justice system are on probation. This should tell us that the majority of people in jail for drug offenses aren’t doing it just to get high and because they don’t care, they have an addiction. -Celtics001
ReplyDeleteMass incarceration is one of the biggest problems within the criminal justice system today. So many people are being sent to prison that they are overpopulated and have resorted to the creation of private prisons. There are many people held in jail before their trial. The United States already have the highest number of people in prison. According to the chart by Prison Policy Initiative, the type of crimes that most people go to prison for are violent crimes. State prisons are the ones that house the most inmates. The charts do shed some light on the approximate number of people that are sent to prison for what crime. Though we have 2.3 million prisoners we have about 10.6 million of people being sent to jail each year. Many people are held in jail before their trial because they cannot afford to pay their bail. They also discuss some myths about mass incarceration. The first being that releasing non violent drug offenders would end it. Before seeing this I didn't expect that releasing those with drug offenses would end mass incarceration, but it would at least be a big step towards it. Another point that the article makes is that reported data oversimplifies how people interact with the criminal justice system. Like when a person has multiple offenses, only the most serious of them is reported. Or that people convicted of different offenses are grouped together. There is also the belief that poverty plays a role in mass incarceration. I don't really believe that. Though it is true that most who end up going to prison are poor, it does not directly cause crime. I think they should find ways so that if someone is unable to pay their bail that they can pay it off some other way.
ReplyDelete-Ram001
People are being locked up for very minor crimes. Low level drug offenses are getting years in prison. The United States has a major problem of locking up people for very minor offenses. The United states is one of the most jalinous country on earth. There are 2.3 million people locked up in the United States. The bulk of people that are locked up are in State Prisons. State Prisons hold 1.3 million people, that is over half of the people locked up. Local Jails comes the closest to State Prisons, they hold around 612,000 people. Every year in the United States 600,000 people enter into the prison system. For jails that number is much worse. Every year in the United States there are 10.6 million people who enter the jail system. The reason why that number is so high is that many of these people are just in the jail for a few hours or days. There is a high turnover rate in the jail system. On any given day 15,000 people are convicted in jail and usually serve a year or less. Non-violent drug offenses are a big part in the prison and jail system. 1 and 5 people who are incarcerated are in there for a drug offense. Drug offense makeup 500,000 of the people being locked up a year. People like to think that releasing low level drug offenders will help reduce the problem of mass incarceration. It will help a little but the bulk of people that are locked up in state prisons are violent offenders and property crimes. One of the myths that people believe is that Private Prisons are the corrupt heart of mass incarceration. This myth is not true as Private Prison only hold about 8 percent of incarcerated people. -ClarkKent002
ReplyDeleteReading this article was definitely interesting for me because, I can admit it, I believed that removing the "mass" amount of drug offenders from the system would fix mass incarceration. I was also surprised about how little of a percentage played a role when it came to private prisons. It was interesting to see that only 5000 people of the private prison area are in work programs. Definitely paints a picture that there is not a sense prisoner slave labor as some would call it. They are even paid the minimum wage before state deductions. I liked that they acknowledged the existence of the belief that sexual or violent crime offenders are best kept locked up because they are a danger. Just because someone has a violent episode doesn't mean they are one of the dangers to society, or that a person labeled a sex offender is also a danger to a community. People can get these labels with crimes that were committed that sometimes are as simple as undetermined self-defense, or a relationship between a 17 year old and a 19 year old.
ReplyDelete- Lobster001
Several of the things I found interesting in this article came from the myths about criminal justice. Starting off they talk about how it’s a myth that releasing non-violent offenders would end mass incarceration. While it’s true that many people are being held for non-violent offenses the bulk of people in state and local prisons are indeed locked up for violent and property crimes. They state in the article we will have to go further than looking at non-violent offenders in order to fix mass incarceration and look more closely at strategies involving investing in social services for the community and community based corrections. Also I liked how they brought up private prisons, though they only make up 8% of the current prison population so they can’t really be pointed to as the cause of mass incarceration they are a problem because people still lobby for tougher laws so that more people can be locked up and they can profit. I personally don’t believe prisons should be something that people are profiting from frankly I’d say that’s rather immoral. The third myth they talk about is the myth that prisons are factories behind fences and that businesses are profiting off of prison labor. While this does happen the article contends that it’s not a large factor in what keeps mass incarceration going. They do point out that prisons do rely on work from prisoners to keep prisons going. Many prisoners will have to work in the prison whether it’s in the kitchen or doing laundry. I think prisoners working is an ok thing but the article points out there is little oversight or regulation and they don’t have many rights or protections. I understand these people are in prison but I think it’s important to treat them as people still and make sure they aren’t being exploited. One of these days they will return to society and I would hope that the prison did everything they could to ensure they come out better than when they got there.
ReplyDeleteAvatar002
I agree with you, removing the minor drug offenders that are not as violent is a great start for decreasing mass incarceration. We can force them to pay a fine for their crime and have other sorts of punishment instead of jail. This would decrease our incarceration amount and we would be able to focus our time on bigger crimes and criminals that need to be locked up. Drug offenders are only hurting themselves. If you are stupid enough to do drugs than you’ll quickly see your health declining and realize that you’re hurting yourself and your loved ones. #notaplumber002
ReplyDeleteI learned a lot and found a lot of things interested in this report. One thing that really stood out to me is when they talked about The American criminal justice system holds almost 2.3 million people in 1,719 state prisons, 109 federal prisons, 1,772 juvenile correctional facilities, 3,163 local jails, and 80 Indian Country jails as well as in military prisons, immigration detention facilities, civil commitment centers, state psychiatric hospitals, and prisons in the U.S. territories. Another thing I found interesting is was the pie chart for why people are locked up and seeing that state prison holds the most people and most of them are in there for violence which is assault, robbery rape, manslaughter, and murder is really heartbreaking. Every year, over 600,000 people enter prison gates, but people go to jail 10.6 million times each year. Some people aren’t made for prison they only need to get locked up one time and see how it actually is and they’ll never return again. Jail either build you or break you, it's not made for everybody.I also find it surprising that only 13,000 people are being held by Immigration and Customs enforcement surprises me because millions of people have illegally crossed our borders and only 13,000 get caught. Police make over 1 million drug arrest each year, i think police departments should ease up on the drug arrests and start sending people to mental health facilities to wing them off drugs and provide them the health they need instead of punishing them for using it and god more tough on crime like they say.-KenzieLand002
ReplyDeleteThe American criminal justice system holds almost 2.3 million people in 1,719 state prisons, 109 federal prisons, 1,772 juvenile correctional facilities, 3,163 local jails, and 80 Indian Country jails as well as in military prisons, immigration detention facilities, civil commitment centers, state psychiatric hospitals, and prisons in the U.S. territories. 540,000 people locked in jail until bail or trial. Another thing that I read was that 1 in 10 juveniles are incarcerated at some point and that is a number that is very concerning because they are being locked inside an adult prison or jail. Another thing that I found interesting in his article is that 1 in 10 juveniles are either in an adult jail or prison. This is not good because they will be taken advantage of badly and that is not good. It is also crazy that 63,000 youth are locked up. This is a sad statistic. Net jail growth is caused due to pretrial detention. Something disturbing is that why most people are held in jail for pretrial is because they do not have enough money to bail themselves out of jail even if they are innocent. Another thing I found interesting is that only 8% of prisoners are held in private prisons. 76% of people being held in jail are not convicted of any crimes. We have over 10.6 million people go to jail every year. Police make over 1 million drug arrest each year. 1 in 5 people are incarcerated on a drug offense. 8,100 youth behind bars for technical violations of their probation, rather than for a new offense.-CUBSFAN002
ReplyDeleteWhen reading this article I was not very surprised by some of these facts. For example, every year over 600,000 people enter prison gates, but people go to jail 10.6 million times each year. This was not surprising because, from what I learned in corrections last semester, a lot of people go to jail every year and every day. Another fact that I learned from this article is how many people from jails to prisons around the United States of America enter each year. The American criminal justice system every year almost 2.3 million people in 1,719 state prisons, 109 federal prisons, 1,772 juvenile correctional facilities, 3,163 local jails, and 80 Indian Country jails as well as in military prisons, immigration detention facilities, civil commitment centers, state psychiatric hospitals, and prisons in the U.S. territories. What I found interesting about this is that a) there are that many state and federal prisons in the United States of America and b) how many people enter each year. I also found out that ‘jail churn’ is particularly high because most people in jails have not been convicted. From my knowledge from last semester in corrections class many of the people in jail are either waiting for bail to be posted or are waiting for their day in court. They’re not there because they were/ have been convicted of a crime, but because they are waiting to get out. Another fact that I learn while reading this article is that, to go along with the last fact, only a small number (which is less than 150,000 on an average day) have been convicted, and are generally serving misdemeanors sentences under a year. Also most are too poor to avoided being in jail for days or weeks, so they are stuck there till it is their day in court. I also learned that overcriminalization of drug use, use of private prisons, and low-paid or unpaid prison labor are among the most contentious issues in criminal justice system. They are a moral outrage. Also, I learned that alternatives to going to jail or prison, such as prole, probation, etc., are designed so that the person getting out goes back to prison. What I found most surprising is how many illegal immigrants are detained each year. Over 49,000 people are detained by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) not for any crime, but simply for their undocumented immigrant status. I knew that people coming in illegally are detained, I didn’t know how many each year are being held. To go along with that, I also learned that, according to the article, “11,800 unaccompanied children are held in the custody of the Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR), awaiting placement with parents, family members, or friends. While these children are not held for any criminal or delinquent offense, most are held in shelters or even juvenile placement facilities under detention-like conditions”. The number of people who are commited to psychiatric hospitals each year surprised me the most. About 22,000 people are involuntarily detained or committed to state psychiatric hospitals, many of whom, these people are not even convicted, and some are held indefinitely. This next one didn’t surprise me because I learned this last semester in corrections class. The final fact that I learned from this article is that the most impacted people in this policy change is those in poverty. This is not suprising to me, but this needs to change or this will just keep happening or getting worse. –Adventureflight002
ReplyDeleteThis article talks about mass incarceration and the statistics that go with it. There are 612,000 people in local jails. This is a lot more than I thought there was considering there are so many in federal and state prisons. I was very surprised that there are so many people arrested for property crime. A big section of the local jails. In the federal prisons and jails there are several convicted people for public order crimes which I find interesting. When I think of public order crimes I don’t really think about crimes that would land you in a federal prison. I think that most of these public order crimes are found in the jails and not so much the prisons. Out of the 46,000 youth that are incarcerated there are 2,500 for drug charges. That’s really sad to see that so many kids are getting into drugs and getting put into jail or prison for them. I think that we should be very lenient with kids when we are dealing with drug charges. Kids on drugs are a very tricky thing and the reason they are doing them is probably a reason that we don’t entertain enough. I hope that we are doing more to incarcerate the sellers of these drugs and not the kids hooked on them. There are 61000 kids in immigration detention which is also sad to see. These kids are just trying to get into America and get a better life for themselves and their families but probably don’t know how to do it legally. Over 540,000 people are locked up and haven’t been convicted which makes me wonder how many of these cases haven’t been looked into enough. We should really look into these types of cases because innocent people in jail or prison isn’t good. Celtics002
ReplyDeleteIn the article about mass incarceration it states facts about what are the most important reasons of the overpopulation of inmates in correctional facilities. There are myths that have partial truth as to reason to mass incarceration but doesn’t help solve the problem. One of them is “nonviolent drug offenders”, which states that the less people are arrest for low level drug possessions there would be less incarceration. Logically yes it would decrease population in jails, but there are far more violent and property crime offenders that take up most of the population. Another reason is “Expanding community supervision”, probation and parole are alternatives instead of being incarcerated. The rules in those alternatives are often seen as if they are made to make offenders fail, which lead to being sent back to jail. When being in probation or parole it would be more productive with rewarding for accomplishments instead at looking at mistake. There is a constant cycle of the same offenders ending up in jail because of violations in their parole. When weren’t they properly rehabilitated to not violate them and become a proper returning citizen. Which also doesn’t help with the fact of private prison and the profit that is behind it. Private prisons don’t want to help inmates return home and not reoffend because of them they make money. But not only private prisons make money off the amount of inmates but also public agencies that rent out space to house inmates in public jails. dory002
ReplyDeleteI do not think people understand how bad private prisons actually are. They are really robbing the state of money and they even said in the article how it is like a parasite. Private prisons are also more likely to bring up law cases involving people being sued. People can be rehabilitated and I think a lot of those in the justice system do not understand that people can be rehabilitated. Grnated, some people cannot be and are too far gone to do so but this is where the risk assessments come in handy and take place. -holywaffles002
DeleteSomething I didn't know was that police officers make over one million drug possession arrests each year. A lot of these people do go to prison over these drug arrests. I started thinking about how this can be a never ending cycle. Once these people complete their prison sentence over the drug possession, it will show up on their records. This can make it extremely difficult for them to find jobs. If they can't find jobs, they could be tempted to start selling drugs on the streets if they were a drug dealer or decided to become one. If they start selling drugs on the street then they could possibly go back to prison. If they are not given the things they need to succeed, it can be difficult to end the cycle. I’m not saying that this cycle is impossible to stop but it can be very difficult. Since the War On Drugs is still going on, I always thought that there were more people in jail for drugs then violent and property offenses. I learned that jail and prison telecom and commissary functions have created multi-billion dollar private industries. I knew that there are some jobs in prisons that pay a little but I didn't know that five of the states don't pay the inmates for the jobs that are normally paid. I also didn't know that some of the prisons paid $3.45 per day. That’s the highest number I’ve seen. After reading about how probation, parole, and pretrial supervision can be a way to set people up to fail, I never really looked at it that way. Depending on the level of probation a person is on, I think locking someone up for being a little late for curfew might be a little extreme. If it was a first or second time and they were spaced out, I don't really see an issue. But if it’s a consistent problem, that might be a little different. I thought it was interesting how people that are convicted of homicide or sexual assault are least likely to reoffend after their release. I also thought it was interesting how people that were convicted of sexual assault or rape have a rearrest rate that is around 30-50% lower compared to people that are convicted of motor vehicle theft or larceny. I thought that they people that were convicted of homicide, sexual assault, or rape had a higher rearrest rate. I heard someone say that it’s almost impossible to rehabiliate a seaxual predator and I’m wondering if that is still true. Something I didn't know that I found interesting is that a juvenile could be locked up for truancy. I thought it was interesting that some juvenile facilities operate and look like prisons and jails. Putting minors in places that reflect prisons and jails can be a step in the wrong direction. It’s better to rehabilitate them at this age because they’re still young. Prisons and jails can be a rough place and that can possible make them worse. -Soccer002
ReplyDeleteI think this article in incredibly important because I truly learned quite a bit from reading this all. Ten facts I found interesting from this article are 2.3 million people are currently incarcerated in the United States. 600,000 people enter prison gates but people go to jail 10.6 million times each year. I think this amount is so excessive. It is a number you absolutely would not have even thought was at for our justice system, at least I did not. At state and local levels, far more people are locked up for property and petty offenses rather than drugs or for violent crimes. One in in five incarcerated people are locked up for a drug offense. This did not surprise me because we have learned in classes that a lot of people are locked up for drug , people were incarcerated for technical violations of probation and parole. offenses and other petty crimes. On average, incarcerated people earn 86 cents to upwards of $3.45 for prison jobs. In 2016, 168,000 people incarcerated for technical violations of probation and parole. People convicted of homicide are among the least likely to re-offend after release. This does not surprise me either because of what we have learned in class. The convicted offenders of rape or sexual assault have re-arrest rates of roughly 30-50% lower than people convicted of larceny or motor vehicle theft. The last thing I found super interesting was that approximately 2200 youth locked up for "status" offenses which are behaviors that are not law violations but instead more so along the lines of truancy and running away. -holywaffles002
ReplyDeleteThis article runs into the same issue that usually plagues these types of articles. It begins with an agenda, specifically with the supposition that 2.3 million people being incarcerated is necessarily wrong, because incarceration is itself an evil. The number itself is large, but given the size of the United States and the number of offenders in the public sphere, 2.3 million may simply be an example of the justice system working as designed to punish people that society wants punished. For instance, while I am personally for ending the drug war, on all fronts, full stop, that isn’t what society wants. In the 1980’s, crack cocaine was the new plague, and everyone rallied the troops to defeat it. New laws were brought to bear on this menace, especially by congressmembers whose districts were particularly beset by it. This included Congress’ Black Caucus, who took strident measures in an effort to stem the flow of crack cocaine into their home territories. What happened is somewhat predictable in retrospect. The penalties increased, but failed to curb demand, and demand drew supply. It’s the classical story of Prohibition – the government cannot actually stop a market conducted without the government’s knowledge. We see it now repeated with the heroin epidemic, which I predict will have similar results. The only way forward that I see is by ending the drug war completely, legalizing and managing it in a way that saves the most lives. There is no putting this genie back into the bottle, we can only try to prevent as much of its havoc as possible. The problems of prison industry are traceable back to the Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution – the Congress of the 1860’s decided that convicts would best be put to use as labor, rather than remaining idle, and now we reap the consequences of that decision. Perhaps it is time to reconsider whether the government of the living by the dead is a system worth preserving at all. – Arsenal002
ReplyDeleteThis article runs into the same issue that usually plagues these types of articles. It begins with an agenda, specifically with the supposition that 2.3 million people being incarcerated is necessarily wrong, because incarceration is itself an evil. The number itself is large, but given the size of the United States and the number of offenders in the public sphere, 2.3 million may simply be an example of the justice system working as designed to punish people that society wants punished. For instance, while I am personally for ending the drug war, on all fronts, full stop, that isn’t what society wants. In the 1980’s, crack cocaine was the new plague, and everyone rallied the troops to defeat it. New laws were brought to bear on this menace, especially by congressmembers whose districts were particularly beset by it. This included Congress’ Black Caucus, who took strident measures in an effort to stem the flow of crack cocaine into their home territories. What happened is somewhat predictable in retrospect. The penalties increased, but failed to curb demand, and demand drew supply. It’s the classical story of Prohibition – the government cannot actually stop a market conducted without the government’s knowledge. We see it now repeated with the heroin epidemic, which I predict will have similar results. The only way forward that I see is by ending the drug war completely, legalizing and managing it in a way that saves the most lives. There is no putting this genie back into the bottle, we can only try to prevent as much of its havoc as possible. The problems of prison industry are traceable back to the Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution – the Congress of the 1860’s decided that convicts would best be put to use as labor, rather than remaining idle, and now we reap the consequences of that decision. Perhaps it is time to reconsider whether the government of the living by the dead is a system worth preserving at all. – Arsenal002
ReplyDeleteThere were some awesome statistics shown in this article. I was able to find out how many people were incarcerated within state prisons, local jails, federal prisons, and others. One thing that I thought was crazy was just the amount of people within the system. Every time I see or hear about how many people are incarcerated in the United States, it always amazes me and not in a good way, but in a more I can not believe it sort of way. When I saw the graph which showed the population amount within the system it was jaw dropping because when you see a chart like this one, it is unbelievable almost. I like how it also mentions the amount of youths on the chart as well. When I was reading the article, it said that over six hundred thousand people enter into the prison system every year. That is ridiculous. We as a nation are obviously doing something wrong here. The only way to fix it is to come up with a plan and start using it instead of just waiting around doing nothing. I like how it mentioned the myths about mass incarceration. It was very eye opening since one of my topic papers is mass incarceration and how to reduce the overcrowdedness of prisons. I do have to say though, I think that we should release nonviolent drug offenders and put them on probation and make them attend daily meetings to get help with their problems until a certain period of time is up and then they can be released into society if they show improvement as a human being. -Anchorman002
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