Positive And Negative Effects Of Incarceration

These are the major laws that affect the incarceration at the federal level; many states have mandatory minimums and similar policies. But that is changing. It is simply ineffective and inappropriate for states to focus only on new drug legislation. Twenty-three states have recently repealed drug penalties, including revision or even elimination of mandatory minimums, reclassifying what constitutes a drug offense, revising sentencing enhancements (being convicted of the same crime twice results in harsher penalties the second time), modifying sentencing guidelines, establishing gender-specific pre-trial assessments, and authorizing risk-reduction sentencing (Gelb). Unfortunately, as these 23 states lowered their penalties, 14 states both
While it might release them from prison, the incarceration experience is incredibly isolating and often ruins their mental health (Swavola et al. 15). Considering that many women already enter prison with mental health issues and histories of substance and domestic abuse, women can be even more disadvantaged after leaving incarceration (The nature of imprisonment is to remove offenders from society; as consequence, women are often scared when they reenter a different world than the one they left. This often leads women right back to familiar people and activities because they don’t see any other options (Gaskins 1544). If there is no program to help them reintegrate and avoid imprisonment again, the news drug laws are for
Clinton goes on to praise the success and importance of gender-responsive programs and her plans to implement them. If she had won the presidency, it can be assumed that she would have continued the Obama administration’s plans to integrate gender-responsive programs (“Prison Reform”). Scholarly research shows that gender-responsive programs work; they reduce recidivism rates and help women have a successful future free from the clutches of the criminal justice system. In the face of a new administration that believes judges are too lenient with drug offenders and proposes a return to the policies from the heyday of the “war on drugs,” it is crucial for the states to adopt programs that are specific to female offenders (“Donald Trump”). In order to prevent criminal justice reform from taking a step back in the process of true justice and rehabilitation, states must work to rehabilitate and reintegrate women back into our society. If they do not, it is not unreasonable to expect the mass incarceration of women will continue to