Overcrowding Costs Crime Rates

American Corrections System

Prisons are so overcrowded within the states that typically "only one criminal is jailed for every one hundred violent crimes committed" (Economist, 1996). Many violent criminal offenders do not even serve out their entire terms; many serve half of their term and are released on an appeal or probation (Economist, 1996). These prisoners are often released to society only to commit another crime at a later date.

Statistics validate the fact the American Correctional System is currently overburdened. According to one report, "More than one million inmates were confined in American prisons in 1995 alone and the number has been steadily increasing over the last few years (Albion, 2003)." The ability of state and local correctional facilities to manage and keep pace with the upward spiral of people incarcerated and imprisoned within the U.S. also continues to decrease, as most prisons within America currently continue to operate at levels above carrying capacity (Alexander, 1996). Many prisons house as many as 170% of the inmates they were designed to be able to manage, which creates security risks and hazards to inmates and their communities (Alexander, 1996). These statistics alone validate the need to re-evaluate the American prison system. The solution offered to overcrowding in the past has been building more prisons. Yet building more prisons does not deal with the underlying problem of more and more incarcerations.

Another side effect of overcrowding in prisons is understaffing. Prisons are overburdened and enough staff can't be hired to contain the prisoners currently incarcerated. As a result of this, assaults to corrections officers continue to rise as well as conditions within prisons continue to deteriorate (Alexander, 1996).

Some opponents of creating new prisons have argued that rehabilitation is the best means to reduce and crime and toughen up the American corrections system. Some have suggested that one way to assist prisoners may include teaching inmates to build stronger social relationships (Tipp, 122). Supporters of rehabilitation programs also argue that prisoners would also benefit from career counseling and more involvement with educational programs (Tipp, 122). Such measures are much more likely to result in a safer society.

In America, typically the solution to prison overcrowding has been to build more prisons to house the increased criminals. Such measures are commonly referred to as an attempt to "out build the problem" (Tipp, 121). This will result only however in increasing the number of prisons that ineffectually reform criminals and result in no change in crime statistics. There is no evidence whatsoever that indicates that increasing the number of prisons will result in less crime and a more safe society. Even in the face of crime decreasing, the number of prisoners in jails continues to increase, furthering the problem of overcrowding (Welch, 1998).

Rehabilitation might be a productive measure that will help reform prisoners currently living in overcrowded prisons and thus reform the American correctional system, but only if it is approached correctly. To appropriately reform prisoners, one should first examine the demographic and nature of prisoners being reformed. Rehabilitative measures are most likely to be beneficial to offenders that have committed non-aggressive crimes for example. Non-aggressive offenders are much more open to programs that will graduate them from American prison systems into a community based "house arrest" program that continues rehabilitative and social learning programs (Tipp, 123).

According to some the purpose of the American prison system is to provide "retribution, to educate, to deter and to incapacitate" (Murray, 2003). Reforming prisoners needs to involve teaching prisoners to make better choices, causing them to become less likely to re-offend in the future (Murray, 2003). In one study of prisoners conducted in 1983, 62% were found to have re-offended within a three-year period (Murray, 2003). A similar study conducted 11 years later showed that 67% were re-offending (Murray, 2003). This could be attributed to the fact that more people are being incarcerated and released however.

A comprehensive study conducted by the University Of Maryland Department Of Criminology in 1997 examined what really works in preventing crime. The study examined short- and long-term rehabilitation programs and found that "boot camps" or short-term programs and electronic tagging programs were ineffectual (Murray, 2003). Unfortunately these boot camps are the most commonly used rehabilitation programs currently in place to help reform juvenile offenders particularly. Long-term intensive counseling programs that included supervision were also ineffective in some situations (Murray, 2003). What did work was rehabilitation that was oriented toward specific risk factors for particular individual offenders (Murray, 2003).

The study found the following to be true: More than half of all prisoners released are re-arrested for a new offense, and 47% are reconvicted of a new crime (Murray, 2003). Released prisoners with the highest re-arrest rates were car thieves, dealers in stolen property, burglars and robbers (all above 70% re-arrest and incarceration) (Murray, 2003). 44% released were under the age of 30, and most were re-arrested within 6 months of their release (Murray, 2003). More and more evidence indicates that the youngest prisoners, those between the ages of 18-24, were the most likely to be re-arrested (75%) (Murray, 2003). Prisoners over the age of 45 were least likely to return to prison (Murray, 2003).