Prison Reform final draft Essay PDF

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Kendal Tucker College of Education, Grand Canyon University PHI-105: 21st Century Skills: Critical Thinking and Problem Solving Dr. Riggs February 22, 2021

Prison Reform Something in society will always need to be fixed today because it reflects upon the nation, and the society is not perfect. Recently, prison reform has been one of the issues that have caught the attention of people all across the United States. Prison reform been an underlying issue that people are becoming more aware of. Many believe the reforming the U.S prisons will the beginning of solving a problem. Prison reform matters because in many instances, prisoners are often treated inhumanely when they are incarcerated and are not even treated as humans when they done serving their time. Reformers believe that their work can bring about change in the prison system by changing the way the United States prison system punishes people who do commit crimes and focusing more on constructive rehabilitation. The United States has 5 percent of the world's population but 25 percent of its prisoners. Right now, 2.2 million people are locked up across the country, and while crime has been decreasing in past two decades, rates of imprisonment are at remarkable highs (O’Brien, 2020). American reformers are deeply dissatisfied with the current state of the United States prison system. It has also been brought to the people’s attention that mass incarceration costs too much money and does not achieve enough. There has also been a conversation about the role of systemic racism about the causes of police violence, about the importance of personal responsibility and retribution (Riley et. al., 2018). Nevertheless, many think that society can find common ground on three basic moral norms that should set a standard the use of imprisonment as punishment. First is that punishments should be proportional to crimes. Second, like cases should be treated alike. Third, criminal punishment should not do more harm than good. Unfortunately, more than a few of the U.S. prison systems do not meet the basic standard each of these principles.

A major cause of the increasing prison population is the rise of mandatory minimum sentencing laws that force judges to give offenders fixed terms for crimes, most of these cases related to drugs. Such strict punishments were endorsed by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1991, in a case concerning a first-time offender sentenced to life without parole for possessing 672 grams of cocaine. The majority decision in Harmelin v Michigan, written by the late Justice Antonin Scalia, found that the constitutional ban on cruel and unusual punishment did not prohibit disproportionate sentences. A second fundamental principle of prison reform comes from Aristotle: treat like cases alike. If two offenses are the same in their degree of seriousness, then they should be punished in the same fashion. But unpredictability and discrimination are all too common. In 1972, in Furman v Georgia, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down existing death-penalty statutes on the grounds that they were riddled with unreliability and inconsistency, and that they discriminated against minorities and the poor. After that, the death penalty was put on hold across the U.S. for some time until some states reformed their rulings to satisfy constitutional requirements. Finally, there is the saying that punishment must not do more harm than good. Custody has been found to be the most expensive way of punishment. The money should be used instead to fund rehabilitation programs to treat addiction and mental illness. Which has been found to be a significant cause of criminal activity. And it can be used to improve conditions for communities where crime is widespread. Incarceration places a terrible burden on families and communities. In the areas where incarceration is high, 65 percent of families find themselves living on or below the poverty line, according to the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights in California. Children of jailed parents, especially young people of color, are dramatically more likely to become homeless (Cupe, 2013). In addition to the financial burden, there is also a political

constitutional right that is stripped away. Convicted felons can never vote, which means that their communities have even less of a voice than they would otherwise. Which makes it that much more challenging when it comes to the subject of prison reform. Coming home after imprisonment is not always easy. Convicted felons often struggle to find housing and employment, adding to the worries of their already-stressed families (Brown & Smith, 2018). United States reformers have struggled with the problem of how to punish criminals while also preserving their humanity and how to protect the public while also allowing prisoners to re-enter society after their sentences end (Cupe, 2013). Morally, we cannot reduce people down to being a product of their environment. For reformers, there is an abundance of hope for remorse and transformation. Retribution suggest that criminals must always be identified with their worst behavior. They are aware that not everyone will have an experience that makes them want to change their ways. The current prison system insist that offenders can do nothing to redeem themselves and that is both irrational and immoral. Even if a person is die hard for “backing the blue”, they should agree that there is no way that the United States can justify the evils we find in the country’s prisons today. The system's gross lack of proportionality, its failure to treat like cases alike, and its harmful consequences for prisoners and communities are incompatible with a humane and decent society.

References Brown, E., & Smith, A. (2018). Challenging mass incarceration in the City of Care: Punishment, community, and residential placement. Theoretical Criminology, 22(1), 4. Cupe, C. (2013). Inside out: A Prisoner’s Perspective on Prison. J Journal: New Writings on Criminal Justice, 6(1), 67–72. O’Brien, T. L. (2020). Arresting Confidence: Mass Incarceration and Black–White Differences in Perceptions of Legal Authorities. Social Science Quarterly (Wiley-Blackwell), 101(5), 1905–1919. https://doi-org.lopes.idm.oclc.org/10.1111/ssqu.12842 Riley, R. W., Kang-Brown, J., Mulligan, C., Valsalam, V., Chakraborty, S., & Henrichson, C. (2018). Exploring the urban–rural incarceration divide: Drivers of local jail incarceration rates in the United States. Journal of Technology in Human Services, 36(1), 76–88. https://doi-org.lopes.idm.oclc.org/10.1080/15228835.2017.1417955...