America’s prisons have been called “graduate schools for crime.” Itstands to reason: Take a group of people, strip them of possessions andprivacy, expose them to constant threats of violence, overcrowd theircell-block, deprive them of meaningful work, and the result is an embitteredunderclass more intent on getting even with society than contributing toit. Prisons take the nonviolent offender and make him live by violence. Theytake the nonviolent offender and make him a hardened killer. America hasto wake up and realize that the current structure of our penal system isfailing terribly. The government has to devise new ways to punish theguilty, and still manage to keep American citizens satisfied that ourprisonsystem is still effective.Americans pay a great deal for prisons to fail so badly. Like all biggovernment solutions, they are expensive. In the course of my studiesdealing with the criminal justice system, I have learned that thegovernment spends approximately eighty-thousand dollars to build one cell,and $28,000 per year to keep a prisoner locked up. That’s about the sameas the cost of sending a student to Harvard. Because of overcrowding, itisestimated that more than ten-billion dollars in construction is needed tocreate sufficient space for just the current prison population.
The Essay on Understanding State and Federal Prisons
... awaits criminals is incarceration where they are kept in prisons. Prisons are institutions designed to securely accommodate persons who are ... differences that are observed between state and federal prisons. State prisons have little or no enormous budget to expand ... And also because of this advantage over state prisons, federal prison administration and management get more training and workshops ...
The plaintruth is that the very nature of prison, no matter how humane societyattempts to make it, produces an environment that is inevitablydevastatingto its residents. Even if their release is delayed by longer sentences,thoseresidents inevitably return to damage the community, and we are payingtop dollar to make this possible.Why should tax payers be forced to pay amounts to keepnonviolent criminals sitting in prison cells where they become bitter andmore likely to repeat their offenses when they are released? Instead, whynot put them to work outside prison where they could pay back the victims of their crimes? The government should initiate work programs; where the criminal is given a job and must relinquish his or her earningstothe victim of their crime until the mental and physical damages of theirvictims are sufficed. A court will determine how much money the criminalwill have to pay for his restitution costs, and what job the criminal willhaveto do to pay back that restitution. The most obvious benefit of this approach is that it takes care of thevictim, the forgotten person in the current system. Those who experienceproperty crime deserve more than just the satisfaction of seeing theoffender go to prison.
Daniel Van Ness, president of Justice Fellowship,has said:All the legal systems which helped form western lawemphasize the need for offenders to settle with victims. Theoffense was seen as primarily a violation against the victim. While the common welfare had been violated and thecommunity therefore had an interest and responsibility inseeing that the wrong was addressed and the offenderpunished, the offense was not considered primarily a crimeagainst the state as it is today. (76)Restitution offers the criminal a means to restore himself-to undergo arealchange of character. Mere imprisonment cannot do this; nothing candestroy a man’s soul more surely than living without useful work andpurpose. Feodor Dostoevsky, a prisoner for ten years during czaristrepression, wrote, “If one wanted to crush, to annihilate a man utterly,toinflict on him the most terrible of punishments…one need only give himwork on a completely useless and irrational character” (77).
The Essay on Crime and Criminal Justice
Lucky Reaction Paper The book Lucky written by Alice Sebold, told the story of her rape and her life before and after it, including parts of the trial and criminal justice system. Her rape happened in 1981 in Syracuse, New York. My initial reaction to the beginning of the book was not good, but after reading the book I have changed my mind. I had a few problems with some of the issues that arose ...
This isexactlywhat goes on in the “make work” approach of our prisons and it is one ofthe contributing factors to prison violence. To quote Jack Kemp, authorofCrime and Punishment in Modern America: The idea that a burglar should return stolen goods, pay fordamage to the house he broke into and pay his victims forthe time lost from work to appear at a trial meets withuniversal support from the American people. There is, ofcourse, a reason that the concept of restitution appeals toAmerica’s sense of justice. Restitution also provides analternative to imprisonment for nonviolent criminals,reducing the need for taxpayers to continue buildingprisons. (54)Working with the purpose of paying back someone that has been wrongedallows a criminal to understand and deal with the real consequences of hisactions. Restitution would be far less expensive than the current system. Experience shows that the cost per prisoner can be as low as ten percentofthat of incarceration, depending on the degree of supervision necessary. Removing nonviolent offenders from prison would also relieveovercrowding, eliminating the necessity of appropriating billions morepublic dollars for prison construction.Restitution would deter crime with the same effectiveness as prison.
Prisons themselves have not done much of a job when it comes todeterrence. Nations with the highest incarceration rates often have thehighest crime rates. But studies of model restitution programsdemonstratethat they greatly reduce the incidence of further crime, since theyrestore asense of individual responsibility, making the offender more likely to beable to adjust to society. Reducing recidivism is the most direct way toreduce crime.Criminal justice authorities also tell us that it is not so much thetype of punishment that deters crime, but rather the certainty ofpunishment. With respect to deterrence, virtually any sanction, imposedswiftly and surely, has a deterrent effect. An effectively runrestitutionprogram will deter crime. It is believed that in many cases, aggressiverestitution programs would be a greater deterrent than the threat ofprison. To quote author David Simon, I remember talking in prison with a hardened convict whohad spent nineteen of his thirty-eight years locked up. Hewas in for a heavy narcotics offense that drew a mandatorylife sentence. ” How in the world could you have done it?” Simon asked.” I used to be a rod carrier,” the convict answered, “on theWorld Trade Center building-eighty floors up, gettingeighteen dollars an hour.
The Essay on Crime And Punishment Criminals From Committing
... to discourage criminals from committing future crimes. Deterrence include prisons, or execution. If you send a criminal to prison, or executing ... philosophies of punishment. In the philosophies of punishment, we have retribution, deterrence, rehabilitation, isolation, incapacitation, reintegration, restitution, and ... with the students. If nothing else, the students make it all worthwhile. I love to be ...
One misstep and I was dead. With hash I could make $300,000 a week. One misstep andI was in prison. Better odds.” (Simon 75)The immediate payoff of crime is so great that many are willing to riskprison. The certainty of restitution, by requiring payment, takes theprofitout of crime. The assets of organized crime members and big timenarcotics dealers, for example, could be seized at arrest and confiscatedonconviction, with the offender ordered to make further restitution throughwork programs. That is real punishment. Many Americans believe in our current prison system, andalso believe that it is an effective form of punishment for the criminal. Some would say that criminals can live decent, civilized lives in prisonandgraduate to decent, civilized lives in the free world. My question tothesepeople is; how can criminals live civilized lives in an environment thatonlyoffers chaos and mild forms of anarchy? It is well known what goes onbehind closed doors in prison; terrible atrocities that make the bloodboiland the stomach curdle are the only thing these prisoners are accustomedto while they are in prison. Most inmates learn little of value duringtheirconfinement behind bars, mostly because they adapt to prison in immatureand often self-defeating ways.
As a result, they leave prison nobetter-andsometimes considerably worse-than when they went in. The first timeoffender who is arrested for burglary does not belong in a prison wheretheonly thing he will learn is how to become a better and more violentburglar. Instead, why not make him pay restitution to the store owner whom herobbed? In my opinion, if this form of punishment was initiated for thelesser offender, our prisons will have the vacancies to incarcerate theJeffery Dahmers of the world in prison for life, instead of the infamous”tento twenty, out in five”. Crime is the result of morally responsible people making wrongmoral decisions, for which they must be held accountable. The just andnecessary response to such behavior is punishment, which may includerestitution for community service, stiff fines, or , in cases where theoffender is dangerous, prison. But let’s not kid ourselves any longer.Theprison was not designed to cure the individual; it was made to lock himup.
The Essay on Ethics On Crime Punishment
The retribution rational for punishment is like the social contract theory. This simply means that when an individual offender must be punished its because he/she deserves it. There are three types of retribution the first one is negative retribution, which means one who is not guilty should not be punish for crime. The second is positive retribution, which demands that one who is guilty should be ...
