DB #3 Student Post Response

Kristie Benning 

Incapacitation

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The United States policies change over time and so has the prison population. There have been many attempts by politicians to control crime. While they were mostly decided out of positive intensions, they have led to an extremely high prison population across the country compared with other countries across the globe. This discussion will cover the reasons why the United States has a higher incarceration rate compared to other nations. It will also cover the impact on the country that the high incarceration rate has, specifically on the family life of the incarcerated and finally it will discuss a benefit of having people in prison.

                There are a few reasons why the United State has a high prison population. Many of them revolve around drug policies. One drug policy is the drug-free school zones, which allow schools to send children to the police if the student is found with drugs on them. This creates what is known as the school-to-jail pipe line. Incarceration this early in the life of a child can really impact them in negative ways. These children do not get to experience school or growing up the same way as other children just because they choose to take drugs to school (Cox, Allen, Hanser, & Conrad, 2018). The policies were originally put up to discourage adults from selling drugs to children around a school zone, however the effects have impacted the children themselves. There should be some other way to teach these children about the negatives of drug use in some other way that would provide for their needs better than a school-to-jail pipeline. Another reason that the prison population is high is deterrence theory usage. Incarceration has been used as a deterrence to encourage people not to commit drug related crimes specifically through minimum jail sentences for drug charges. While it will deter some people, it may not deter an individual who is addicted to drugs because the need for the drugs could seem like it outweighs the jail time.

Third, it does not appear like other alternatives are being utilized to their full potential. According to Champlain, “Among persons who spent time in a correctional setting over a 1-year period, 85% were exclusively in jails, and 95% of releases were from a jail facility” (Champlain, et al., 2020, para 1). These incarcerated individuals are only interacting with the prison system, so according to this statement these prisoners did not have access to other types of correctional methods, such as rehabilitation. If 85% of the imprisoned never have the ability to seek out and receive rehabilitation, this mean that the person with a mental health issue never received any sort of treatment. While the focus of this discussion is incarceration, there should be some consideration for rehabilitation in order to ensure that those who end up as part of the prison population do not come back after they serve their time. Sending those who are willing and need mental health care may help prevent them from returning after they are released from jail. The textbook states, “If only 6% of the offenders account for most of the serious crimes, all we have to do in order to reduce crime is to incapacitate this small group of offenders” (Cullen & Jonson, 2017, p. 128). This statement also shows that the approach to charging those who commit crimes that are not in the most serious group may not be the best approach.

The impact on the country by having such a high incarceration rate is that there is a huge expense to upkeep prisons within the United States. There is an opportunity cost to everything including keeping an offender in jail. Each prisoner needs food and basic healthcare while in prison. Also, the prisoner is not able to work, so the prisoner is no longer a functioning member of society. While this may prevent the criminal from committing crimes while incarcerated, this removes the person from a positive potential impact on society, such as holding a job. Once the person leaves prison, they may have trouble finding a job because of their time spent in prison. There is certainly a vicious cycle that can occur with those criminals who are just incarcerated.  Additionally, the families of the incarcerated suffer because the children grow up with limited, if any, interaction with their incarcerated parent. This forces more single-family homes and poorer upbringings than families where both parents are able to contribute to society.

The benefit to incarceration is that the prisoner is no longer on the streets and able to repeat the same crime again until they are released. This seems to be a good political point for certain crimes such as drug abuse. If the drug abuser is no longer on the streets from their drug abuse. While this may discourage the non-addicted person because the non-addicted person is thinking rationally, it does not seem to stop the addict from finding their next drug fix. This benefit has become a political talking point to make politicians seem tough on certain issues. Overall, the United States has a high prison population that is influenced by the political system and specifically the opinion on stopping drug use from affecting our youth.

The United States has a high prison population because the policies have slowly gotten more tough over time, specifically for drug related charges. The school system has created a way for children to go straight from school to jail with their strong no drug policies. Additionally, the United States criminal justice system is favoring incarceration only over other alternative punishments and treatments that may encourage the criminal to stop breaking the law and getting arrested for it. The impact on the high incarceration rate would be the large expense that it takes to run the prison system and the impact on the families of those incarcerated. Finally, the benefit of incarceration is that those caught breaking the law are off the streets for at least a period of time.

 

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