“...Today's broad and vague criminal statutes at both the state and federal level, everyone is guilty of some sort of crime, a point that Harvey Silverglate underscores with the title of his recent book, Three Felonies A Day: How The Feds Target The Innocent, that being the number of felonies that the average American, usually unknowingly, commits.
Such crimes can be manufactured from violations of obscure federal regulations that can turn pocketing a feather or taking home a rusted bit of metal from a wilderness area into a crime. In other cases, issues almost always dealt with in civil court, disagreements over taxes for instance, can be turned into a criminal case.
The combination of vague and pervasive criminal laws — the federal government literally doesn't know how many federal criminal laws there are...” (The Problem of Truth: Discussion of a Lawyer's Duty)
- In 1980, 139 out of 100,000 Americans were incarcerated. In 2009 the number increased to 502 out of 100,000 Americans. Presently, 756 out of 100,000 Americans are in prison.
- This is a 500% increase from 30 years ago.
- According to a U.K.'s study, the U.S.A. makes up roughly 5% of the worlds population, but has the highest imprisonment rate in the world at 25% of the worlds prisoners
Prisoner Abuse
Flaws Within The Criminal Justice System
- Many prisons abuse there prisoners because of overcrowding and under staffing. Correctional officers aren't payed enough for their work and are under qualified.
- At Virginia's Wallens Ridge maximum security prison, inmates are forced to wear black hoods, in theory to keep them from spitting on guards, and were often beaten and cursed at by guards.
- Experts say that some of the worst abuses have occurred in Texas, whose prisons were under a federal consent decree during much of the time President Bush was governor because of crowding and violence by guards against inmates.
- Nearly 200,000 people were sexually abused in American detention faciliteis in 2011
- Most of those who commit sexual abuse in detention are corrections staff
Skewed Priorities
Overcrowding in Prisons
- Black individuals make up 37.4% of prison population, but only take up 13.2% of the United State's population.
- Whites make up 59.2% of prisoners and 77.7% of the country's population.
- Only 6.7% of prisoners are made up of sex offenders while 48.7% are made up of drug offenders
- There are more people behind bars for drug offenses today than there were in 1980 for all offenses combined.
- Three out of four young black men in Washington D.C. can expect to serve time behind bars
- African-Americans comprise 12% of regular drug users, but almost 40% of those arrested for drug use
- Eighty percent of defendants cannot afford lawyers. Tens of thousands of people go to jail without ever talking to a lawyer or going to trial
- Those of a different social, racial, or economic background are treated differently than others
Sources
Financial Issues
http://money.cnn.com/infographic/economy/education-vs-prison-costs/
http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/states/00000.html
http://www.governing.com/gov-data/education-data/state-education-spending-per-pupil-data.html
http://money.usnews.com/careers/best-jobs/patrol-officer/salary
http://www.bls.gov/ooh/protective-service/correctional-officers.htm
http://mic.com/articles/86519/19-actual-statistics-about-america-s-prison-system
http://www.bop.gov/about/statistics/
http://www.afsc.org/story/growing-problems-prison-system
http://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2014/03/19/law-enforcement-clue-jury-criminal-column/6490641/
http://www.umass.edu/legal/Hilbink/250/model%20paper%202.pdf
http://www.ocregister.com/articles/inmates-194495-prison-programs.html
http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/costs-death-penalty
- The U.S. spent $80 billion on incarceration in 2010 alone
- NJ Average about $15,000 per student
- NJ Average about $52,000 per prisoner
- Median annual wage for correctional officers was $39,040 in 2012
- an average $60,076 is spent on each prisoner in New York
- Prison spending varies by state. This is shown through states such as North Dakota where they spend $58,065(3.3% of taxes) a year of taxpayer money on prisons, and California which spends $7,932,388(12.2% of taxes) a year on prisons.
Build Your Own Prison
Prison Expenses
- Total Estimated Inmate Cost (Not all expenses included) - $40,000
- Health Care - $9,000
- Support - $2,500
- Rehabilitation - $2,500
- Rehabilitation is an important part of a prisoners sentence. Most of the extra costs spent in this prison will be made up for if the prisoner is properly re-integrated into society
- Annual Pay For Officer - $64,000
- Officers are under payed and under trained. By properly training these officers, the prison can be run in a safe, healthy, and inexpensive environment.
- Death Penalty - No
- If the death penalty was removed, California will immediately be saving $170 million per year
- Prison Max Capacity - 1,250
- Current Populations - 1,000
- A main problem with many prisons today is either under-population or over-population. Resolving this issue can make prison operations cheaper and safer
- Focus of prison - Rehabilitation
- Rehabilitation may at first seem more expensive, but over time the cost of our prison system will decrease
- Officer to prisoner ratio - 1 to 15
Solutions
For-Profit Prisons
- The biggest private prison owner in America, The Corrections Corporation has seen a profit increase of more than 500% in the past 20 years
- Prisoners are underfed in many private prisons
- Changing harsh penalties
- Public safety is undermined when we waste money in imprisoning low level offenders.
- Prisons should be reserved for those that cannot be allowed into society
- Prisoners need to be properly rehabilitated so they do not commit crimes when they are re introduced to society
- Instead of keeping prisoners locked up or releasing them into society without reforming them, prisons need to create socially acceptable individuals.
- The criminal justice system should by systematically reviewed to reform and reinvigorate.
- Private prisons should not exist. Their constant goal to make profit off of prisoners causes many problems that plague the prisons of America.
- Removal of laws similar to the Three Strike Law
- By jailing people who commit non violent crimes, our country is wasting money. The problem isn't how much we spend on our prisoners, it's how many prisoners there have.
- We may spend alot on each prisoner in some states, but the overall costs of prison would not be as high if they were successfully rehabilitated and released into the world.
- Prisons are forced to keep a certain number of prisoners, so prisons overpopulate their prisons to fill this quota
- Prisons have spent more than $45 million on campaign donation and lobbyists to keep politicians on their side.
- Both Corrections Corporation of America and GEO Group (formerly Wackenhut Corrections Corporation), have “earned” over $2.9 billion in profits since 2000 by exploiting their prisoners for profit.