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Alternative Sentencing Structures in US Prison System
Contemporary laws and the practices of America’s justice system continue to exacerbate the crime problem and have unnecessarily damaged the lives of many people. Moreover, prisons are seen to be systems that are adding more strain to the taxpayers because billions of money goes to waste each year. It has reached a point that the system is almost feeding itself because it takes longer to get off the system and no positive impact is evident on the crime rates. According to research conducted ten years ago, the prison population in America was over two million, which accounts for nearly one-fourth of the world’s total (Alarid, 2016). Having such figures is proof enough of the failure the prison system is facing, and the government should adopt other measures. Rather than stubbornly relying on a system that is a known failure, prisons in America should be discontinued as the primary source of punishment and individual convicted offenders should be punished and treated more suitably in the community through alternative sentencing structures.
With the desire of enhancing safety in the society, prisons are known to be the essential tools, but in most instances, more is not always considered to be better. Criminal justice policy failure in America...
Evidence provided shows that the key to attaining success in such instances will mean diversion from incarceration, accompanied by accurate assessment and screening measures geared towards determining those problems that urgently need addressing. Hence, the government needs to provide the society with the necessary resources that will help to change offenders’ behavior (Alarid, 2016). For all this to be attained, the environment needs to be changed and cater for things like compliance and accountability, supervision, and the sanctioning of noncompliance should incorporate appropriate measures.
Such issues can be changed if only we change our thinking about crime and punishment. Therefore, building sufficient diversion and treatment capacity needs to look at the society or community as vital sentencing alternatives to prison systems. Offenders who will be living in the community will be given a chance to compensate their victims through payback or restitution through community service. Moreover, the community corrections programs have been known to protect the offenders from harm of exposure to subculture violence in many prisons and jails (Alarid, 2016).
Community-based sanctions range from residential programs (therapeutic communities) to…
References
Alarid, L. F. (2016). Community-based corrections (11th ed.). Boston, MA: Cengage Learning.
Cole, G. F., Smith, C. E. & DeJong, C. (2014). The American system of criminal justice (14th Ed.). Boston, MA: Cengage Learning.
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