Prisons as an Area of Corrections
Throughout the years, prisons have become a major component of the criminal justice system since they act as institutions that help in punishment of convicted criminals and deterrent for crime prevention. This article examines these facilities as part of the justice system and how they function in accomplishing their purpose. The analysis includes an exploration of the various types of prisons such as jails, federal, state, maximum security, medium security, minimum security, supermax, and closed security prisons. The role and function of prisons in promoting social change in the modern society has also been discussed.

Prisons as an Area of Corrections:

Prisons are one of the major areas of correctional facilities that serve as places for confinement of convicted criminals. An individual is placed in a prison after being convicted of an offense as punishment for his/her actions. The punishment of criminal offenses in prisons emanate from….

Prisons
For all intents and purposes the modern history of penology -- which is to say, the science and the theory of imprisonment and the state apparatus of the penitentiary -- begins with the late 18th century British philosopher Jeremy Bentham. In Bentham's day (corresponding roughly to the time of the American and French Revolutions) there was no idea of a penitentiary per se: there was instead His Majesty's Penal Colony of New South ales, i.e. present-day Australia (Morris and Rothman 1998, 246). The equivalent of a modern-day misdemeanor offense, such as shoplifting, was sufficient to earn some unlucky Irishman a one-way ticket to Botany Bay, where convicts labored under military supervision. Bentham, meanwhile, was the founder of the philosophical school of Utilitarianism, which attempted to approach and codify ethics in the same way that his contemporary Adam Smith was to codify the theory of market economics. Utilitarianism held that social….

Initiated in october 2000 by around 800 detainees, leftwingers and political activists (Carrol, 2001), who were later followed by members of their families as well as human rights militants, the hunger strike changed into a huge protest movement. This was brutally supressed by the police and the miltary in December, when the operation "Back to Life" was launched. This operation was met with resistance from the prisoners and had extremely high costs in terms of human loss - 28 prisoners and 2 soldiers died in the events. In the end, the results of the operation were a success for the Turkish prison authorities - the prisoners were moved into the new facilities and most of the "schools of anarchy," as Turkish president Demirel called them, were closed
The prison population of Turkey was, at that time, of around 72.000 inmates, but the amnesty billed introduced by the government in late….

Prisons
Before the American evolution, the penal system in the colonies was brutal and harsh. Capital punishment was normative, and crimes were defined rather arbitrarily. As Edge (2009) points out, the colonial American mentality deemed "every crime a sin and every sin a crime," (p. 7). Not going to church on Sundays was sometimes viewed as a punishable offense (Edge 2009). After the Declaration of Independence was signed and the Constitution of the United States was ratified, the penal code in the former colonies improved rapidly and dramatically. Concepts of individual rights permeated the discourse on the penal system, reducing the number of crimes that were punishable by death. Likewise, the practice of public hanging and similar forms of humiliation were banned in the United States. According to the Howard League for Prison eform (n.d.), Jeremey Bentham was a premier representative of prison reform during the 18th century. "Jeremy Bentham, and….

Prisons
Prison is a place where, for the protection of society, those found guilty of crimes are sent to be incarcerated. Prisons are a relative new invention, being created in the modern world, and therefore the social effects on inmates are not well-known. It is known that within prisons, the inmates go through a process by which they are transformed from members of society in general, to members of a prison society. The rules, responsibilities, obligations, and relationships are all very different to the outside world. In order to understand the society which is created when a group of criminals are confined together, researchers have studied the social dynamics of prison life. These researchers have begun to understand the changes in an inmate's psychology as they transform from a traditional member of human society to a member of a prison society. This essay will discuss the evolution of the prison system,….

.. subterranean feel... (and) dusty corridors lined by crumbling walls." Within this dark and foreboding place, visitors can walk through the old cell blocks, stroll through the mess hall, the hospital and the prison chapel, "climb into a guard tower (and) peer into the cells of death row" (Casey, 2007, Internet).
Obviously, the American public does hold a fascination with prisons and with those who are forced to live within their high walls, due to committing crimes against society. But in the end, it is not so much the prisons that fascinate people but what they symbolize, being the fear of the unknown, the fear of dark places where the incidents that occur within their walls are only known to the inmates and the guards. Also, prisons and incarceration represent confinement and the taking away of freedom and liberty. Perhaps those who are fascinated with prisons only wish to step out….

Prisons
The American criminal justice system can be divided into three components: law enforcement, the courts, and corrections. Each has its own unique problems and challenges that it must face in order to accomplish its combined goal of ensuring safety and justice throughout society. But one problem that all must face is the problem of overcrowding. With nearly 300 million people in the United States, there actual number of people who enter the criminal justice system is staggering. The police are overworked and underpaid, the courts run 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, and prisons are so overpopulated that courts are forced to order the early release of thousands of prisoners each year. While overcrowding is a problem in all three aspects of the justice system, this essay will examine the problem of overcrowding within the prison system.

The United States of American has one of the largest prison….

Prisons
Prison Systems

Auburn State Prison vs. Eastern State Penitentiary

In the early 1800's, the United States became the focus of prison reform when both New York and Pennsylvania introduced new systems of prisons. Prior to this time prisons were "used largely for persons awaiting trial and other punishments and for debtors…." (Johnston) But with the advent of these new systems, a whole new era emerged in prison design, purpose, and administration. Pennsylvania, traditional home of the Quakers, had abolished the death penalty for all crimes except murder, which led to the need for an alternative sentence. Long confinement became the obvious choice and they embarked on building an institution that reflected their Quaker philosophies. The first of these "penitentiaries" to be constructed was Eastern State Penitentiary. On the other hand was New York, which also needed to construct places to house prisoners for long-term confinement. However, New York took a more….

Prisons as punishment or whether they are good for rehabilitation or rather perhaps neither are of a positive effect for the offender or have a negative effect.
Prison as a Punishment

There are many arguments for and against prisons many see the prison role as a way of helping to fight crime, for example many argue that as a deterrent it can force criminals to avoid prison by not committing crimes. However, this ideal was a theory that began as policy for governing penal centres in the early 1970's, since that time the prison populations have increased fivefold (Clear, 2002 and Blumstein, 1993).

Never the less the growth of the prison system is not being met with a decrease in crime, rather the opposite. The major increase of those being incarcerated and the lack of a reduction in crime needs to be discussed and looked at with some in-depth examination (Clear, 2002….

Prisons Reform Prisoners?
America has experienced a huge increase in the number of people who are imprisoned over the past few decades. The increase has particularly been fueled by the increase in violent crimes throughout the society. The American criminal justice system has experienced increase in the number of people who are imprisoned annually despite the enactment of tougher policies to deal with crime and increased efforts towards reforming prisoners. Generally, prisons have been established as correctional facilities to tackle offenses in the society, especially lessening violence. In light of recent statistics and trends, there are numerous concerns on whether prisons actually help in lessening violence or just segregate the violence or whether they really attempt to reform prisoners seriously. This concern has attracted several huge controversies based on numerous argument and counter-arguments.

Arguments in support of the claim that prisons reduce violence and actually reform prisoners have been fostered by….

11). Davis squarely blames the proliferation of prisons and prison inmates on racism. Prisons, according to Davis, have taken the place of slavery and legal segregation. The author embellishes her position through her characteristically deft use of language, such as by referring to the "abolition" of prison culture in America.
Davis claims the prison-industrial complex is a tool for social control in a society too lazy to address the root causes of racism, sexism, and poverty. The Marxian discourse in Davis' work presents prison culture in light of conflict theory. Conflict theorists will find Davis' arguments familiar. Disproportionate numbers of minorities in general prison populations and in maximum security prison populations substantiate Davis' claims about the relationship between race, power, and social control in modern American society. Davis' data also draws attention also to the congruence of poverty and ethnicity. An intrepid feminist scholar, Davis links incarceration to actual and….

Penitentiary System
Two Significant Changes to the Penitentiary System during the 20th Century

During the 19th Century prisons were harsh environments that incorporated corporal punishment, striped uniforms and lockstep marching. In 1876 the Elmira Correctional Facility opened in New York. Elmira was the first prison established on the concept of changing behavior instead of punishing behavior. This facility was designed to reform each inmate through an individualized program, discarding meaningless hard labor, regimens of silence, religious and morality lectures and strict compliance attained through cruelty and fear. The programs instituted at the reformatory included courses in ethics and religion, vocational education, and activities such as a band, newspaper and athletic leagues.

Healthcare

Until recently prison healthcare and interest in the health and medical problems of prisoners was under the direction of county sheriffs or prison wardens. With the exception of the Federal ureau of Prisons, which staffed its medical service needs with Public….

The rate and level of violence in these populations would be the dependent variable. The essential question of the research would be to determine the existence and extent of any relationship between these two variable sets in order to determine if integration is indeed advisable.
The scale of measurement for the variables used will be largely dependent on the general levels of violence seen in the various prisons. Criteria will be established to determine violent incidents to be included in the study, and the number of incidents per week, month, or year (depending on overall frequency) will be compared in prison populations with different levels of integration. Levels of integration will be determined by comparing percentages of various races present in a mixed population, including the percentage of the population that represents the majority/plurality of a prison population to distinguish from truly mixed populations.

My hypothesis for this research is that….

United States, public executions remained until the middle of the 19th century, when the practice began to fall out of favor due to shifts in attitudes toward criminality and criminal justice. Several states opted to banish public executions, without necessarily abolishing the death penalty itself. In 1936, the last public hanging took place in the United States. During the early 20th century, further reforms took place disallowing "cruel and unusual" forms of execution such as public hangings, but several states continue to allow public viewings of executions (eggio, 1997).
As capital punishment fell out of favor and humanitarian ideals prevailed in the philosophy of criminal justice, the institution of imprisonment became the de facto recourse for dealing with serious crime. Whereas previously serious crimes would be treated via capital punishment, the prison system provided the means by which to issue heavy sanctions, segregating the accused from the greater public while….

Prisons are correctional facilities where criminals are confided in order to rehabilitate them. Once a criminal has gotten out of the prison it is expected that they have learnt from their mistakes and not repeat these same mistakes or commit new crimes. They are expected to be changed people who are ready to be productive in the society. However, over the years this has not been achieved successfully. This is due to the fact that prisons are facing various significant challenges today. The paper will look at some of these challenges prisons are facing today and bring out research and discussions of these issues and how they impact the administration of the correctional systems. It will also look at the impact of these issues both global and local scales. Finally solutions to these challenges based on research and examples will also be provided.
Gang activities

Gang activities in prisons are not new….