Prison_Population

Prison populations Axia College/ CJS200 February 23, 2011 The article that I have found that talks about prison population is called The Hidden Problem of Time served in Prison. When reading this article, I have found some interesting information from it. This article gives multiple reasons to why prison population may have increased through the years. There are multiple reasons why this article has mention why prison population have increased. The few that stuck out to me were the availability of alternative, the rise in incarceration of drugs offenders and sentencing policies that restrict judicial discretion, the three strike policy and also the increase of the parole violators. When offenders are released from prison, there aren’t that many jobs that are lined up to hire ex- offenders. So working with a background or felony is rather hard to do. They also have a three strike rule in which many states such as California have enacted in the 1900s. Longer stays in prison is not just a function from the sentencing policy but also the sentencing decision from the judges. There is currently 8,000 people serving a 25 to life sentence due to these three strikes and you’re out policy. Once an offender is release from prison, they go back to the life of crime. Soon after this, they can’t keep up with their probation and as a result they are sent back to prison. On the time spent free, the ex-offenders get back into the life of drugs. They either sell them or do them. Time served in prison doesn’t influence recidivism. One may think that prison time will cause some rehabilitation but this is not always the case. In today’s statistics, there are two thirds of released prisoners who get rearrested within three years. In conclusion, the main idea is that ex-offenders do not have that many options when released from prison. They either go back to the life of crime of drugs, robbery, grand theft, murder etc. There are not that may alternatives to help them and when parole, they can’t be responsible enough to handle that freedom. There need to be some change in the perception of the idea of crime and punishment. Once the offender has done his/her time, they should be allowed more freedom. But this is basically up to the offender to turn their life around and do better a member of society and progress as well.