This justice article defines, examines, and evaluates super-maximum correctional facilities, their individual state policies, and certain characteristics incarcerated inmates exhibit. This article provides insight into how various states’ super-maximum facilities operate, from utilizing specific criteria to define and admit a super-maximum inmate, to how each individual facility deals with these problem inmates. To better understand the use of admission criteria to define an inmate, one must first understand the definition of a super-max facility. There are various definitions of a super-max facility, which leads to constant confusion in regards to the standard for which states should define a super-max facility. While all of these definitions are similar, the most widely used definition is a separate, highly secure housing unit designated for the most violent and dangerous criminals serving long-term sentences.…
In “What is the Prison Industrial Complex”, Rachel Herzin shares her strong opinions in regards to the prison system and all that is attached. The article provides overwhelming evidence that will make you second guess your beliefs. It highlights the core elements of the prison such as criminalization, media, surveillance, policing, courts and prisons. Though, she had compelling and strong details, I would have to disagree that the US needs Prison Industrial Complex Abolition.…
Prisons all over the country are starting to feel the pressure now more than ever. Why? Primarily, because prisons are becoming overcrowded with inmates. Many of whom are people of color. This is happening primarily because of the profit many corporations gain from high incarceration rates.…
The private prison system is a system that allows for private prisons to contract work from corporations by using the prisoners as workers. These workers work for just a few dimes and nickels a day. A former writer for the El Diario La Prensa, in New York, Vicky Pelaez tells the prisoners’ stories for them. In her article titled, “The Prison in the United States: Big Business or a New Form of Slavery?” she points out the negative impact of private prisons on the sentencing of African-Americans and other non-white races in the United States justice system.…
Solitary confinement has been a moral controversy since its early introduction into the American prison system in the nineteen hundreds. Sharon Shalev, a prominent researcher for the effects of prolonged isolation, defines solitary confinement as a method of isolation for forced on inmates for 22.5 to 24 hours a day with no human contact. The debate surrounding solitary confinement concerns the morality of enclosing a person for an extended amount of time without human contact. Proponents of solitary confinement urge that public interest takes precedence over the well-being of a high profile criminal. Additionally, proponents argue that solitary confinement decreases the recidivism rate amongst high risk criminals.…
Haney 2006, found that overcrowding results in correctional administrators implementing policies and procedures that may enable instead of relieving problems that may occur within a prison environment. Unfortunately this trend is evident between mentally ill offenders, because they often face the difficult task of adjusting and conforming to correctional policies. Furthermore, when a prison is also facing overcrowding it can intensify these problems. Thus, considering that mentally disabled inmates tend to become irate and violent in overcrowded prisons, it has become routine to place these individuals in solitary confinement to separate them from others within the facility (Ball, 2014). But while the Supreme Court condemns long term solitary…
Each state utilizes various categories to designate and classify prison security levels, while most states collectively recognize these four in order from the most to least secure and controlling. Super-maximum, maximum-security, medium-security, and minimum-security. Super-maximum prisons are designed to be extremely guarded and constricting, out of all the other categorized prisons. Super-maximum prisons are “reserved for incarcerating the most dangerous and ruthless of offenders, where they tend to be sentenced to longer periods of time in solitary confinement, are under constant surveillance, confined in their cell 23-24 hours a day, and have no access to recreational, educational, religious, or treatment activities” (Rennison, pg.298).…
Since 1989 big private corporations such as Corrections Corporation of America and GEO have been funneling money into politics with more than $10 million directly to candidates and roughly $25 million in lobbying. These big companies are not the usual suspects of lobby efforts like their counterparts Big Pharma and Big Oil, these companies are the two biggest contributors to the third, silent influencers of American politics, Private Prisons (Cohen). Private prisons take responsibility for sixteen percent of federal prisoners and six percent of state prisons according to the ACLU. With a prison population of 2,220,300 Americans, private prisons are becoming one of the largest industries in the nation (Bureau of Justice Statistics).…
Alcatraz Alcatraz was a maximum security prison in San Francisco Bay. The most dangerous and violent criminals, including the famous gangster Al Capone, were sent there. Very few criminals ever escaped because the prison had very high security on an island in the middle of the cold and dangerous San Francisco Bay. Only three had the brains and ability to escape. The prisoners who escaped were Frank Lee Morris, John Anglin, and Clarence Anglin.…
In a recent New York Times article, titled “A 90s Legacy that is Filling Prisons Today” by Timothy Williams, it primarily focuses on people who are serving long sentences for crimes, which are keeping them locked up in prisons for numerous years. Williams writes that the criminal justice system within the United States seems hand out long sentences without the possibility of parole or giving prisoners opportunities for resocialization. Within this cover story, Williams used a real example on how the criminal justice system gives it’s prisoners a restless feeling. Lenny Singleton had a crack habit back in the 1990s and robbed multiple stores within two weeks, which resulted with him a life sentence without the possibility of parole. This story continues to state that the increase of incarceration is becoming a problem.…
The trend of neoliberalist policies in the United States, reducing government regulation while allowing private market interventions to replace these once powers of the government, has shown its effects unevenly to different groups in varying realms of life. Both Wacquant and Molina discuss policy implications with regard to the American prison system and to border control, respectively. Government reducing its effort on certain fronts and yet increasing them on others, seems neutral in theory but in reality, contains consequences, which are examined. A not-previously-seen increase in the rate of incarceration within the American prison system stemmed from a reduction in welfare programs, implemented across the board but disproportionally…
Mass incarceration is a unique way of saying that the United States has locked up a tremendous amount of the population in state and federal prisons, and even local jails. The U.S currently locks over 2.2 million human beings in cages, and many are for nonviolent offenses. What is this issue about? Mass incarceration rates continue to rise. There are spaces in the prisons and jails where there are situations such as no beds available.…
With recent talks on Capitol Hill of an upcoming criminal justice reform, it is not surprising to see topics on sentencing structure, police ethics and practices, and the future of the criminal justice system in the news headlines. One of the biggest topics is the overwhelming prison population in state and federal prisons. This has been a prominent topic for some time now. While some want to curtail the prison community others seem to think there is not a visible complication. Those who sense the prison population or the amount of people under supervision of the criminal justice system is of no concern, more than likely do not understand the impact the population has on criminal justice professionals or where the funding for these institutions…
Eastern State was the first generation of American prisons developed by the Quakers; they used solitary confinement as a means of reflection and repent in order for convicts to change the wrongs they did. It was there idea of a humane alternative from brutal convictions and executions that were quite popular during the early 19th century. Unfortunately this method led to a large number of suicides and mental breakdowns become more and more evident. Auburn State Prison was considered the second generation of…