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Overcrowding In Prisons

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Overcrowding In Prisons
Criminal Justice Overview
Stephanie Smith
CJA/394
October 20, 2014Roy Diaz

Prison and County Correctional Faculties Overcrowding
The subject of prison overcrowding has been an issue for many years. It is not just the prisons that are overcrowded but also the county correctional facilities. In the U.S.A. today 1 in nearly 100 Americans are currently incarcerated ("Alec", 2014). The reasons that the numbers are so high are due to the many different laws and strategies that have been put into place to try and stop crime. Laws such as “The three strikes law” that California implemented calls for mandatory sentencing for repeat offenders and New York’s “Broken window” stagey that calls for all crimes big or small to be prosecuted. These …show more content…
It is used almost as a scare tactic; however most offenders that have more than one offense on their record are not unfamiliar with jail and trouble. They have more than likely been in and out of correctional facilities since they were young. I think for a slim few these laws and strategies are effective. I also feel that there are not enough programs to rehabilitate offenders; if the idea is to keep these people out of jail then society has to help them become a respectable part of it. In order for these programs to work research shows they much include; academic education, vocational education, moral recognition therapy, reasoning and rehabilitation, cognitive restructuring, cognitive behavioral treatment for sex offenders, behavioral treatment for sex offenders, surgical treatment for sex offenders, multi-system therapy, drug courts, drug treatment in the community they live, incarceration based drug treatment (“Analyzing the Effectiveness of Rehabilitation,” 2009). There must be a curriculum to these programs; the effort put forth to succeed must be done by the offender. There are many people in the prison system that with the correct amount of reconditioning can become law abiding …show more content…
Through the establishment of this program, smaller programs were formed that are local to all surrounding prisons and county jails. This program works closely with The Department of Homeland Security, Department of Children Services, Department of Veteran Affairs and many other agencies with in the state. These programs work together to establish regulations and rules that the programs must follow ("Tennessee Department Of Corrections",
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