Why is prison overcrowding bad

With that, there was another brilliant piece of social engineering that our Legislature passed under the radar. It was the reduction of misdemeanors from a potential sentence of days to days. Now you may ask, why would the Legislature do that? This increases the likelihood that an immigrant who is here illegally and committed a crime would get deported. Now we learn that a new piece of legislation has been passed in which prosecutors are mandated to consider immigration consequences when making deals with immigrants who are here legally or illegally.

In other words, the Legislature wants prosecutors to structure deals to avoid deportation. Recently, the state decided that non-violent Second-Strikers are to receive early prison release and early parole consideration. Instead of serving 80 percent of their sentence, these individuals are now considered for early release after they have served just 50 percent, or if they are within 12 months of having served 50 percent of their sentence. By the way, none of these laws considers whether the defendant who is to be released has a violent and lengthy criminal history, a long history of violating parole or probation conditions, or may still pose a danger to society.

They want us to believe that prison overcrowding is a legitimate and growing concern and that we must combat it. Before I answer that, we should first address what a prison is. A prison is a place where convicted felons are confined because they committed a crime that showed their unwillingness to live in harmony with others and be law-abiding members of society. We cannot trust them to participate in our community, so we take away their freedom and lock them up.

There are three main reasons to incarcerate these law breakers: rehabilitation, punishment, and deterrence. Punishment and deterrence are now anathema to those who tinker with public safety and foist reforms upon us.

Today, anything other than rehabilitation is characterized as an inhumane, uncompassionate response to crime — never mind that incarcerated criminals are not committing crimes on the streets. I have always thought that prison should be so bad that you never want to go there, and so bad that if you are ever sent there you will never want to go back.

And the reality is that prisons are bad places. People who commit crimes are forced to sleep in small quarters with individuals who are just like them. Yet at high, medium, low, and minimum security prisons, the number of inmates waiting to enroll in drug treatment programs between was much larger than the number of inmates enrolled in those programs, and the average wait time for entrance into in-prison rehab programs ranged from days in high security prisons, to Increased potential for riots and gang violence.

To make room for more inmates, federal prisons have crammed cells with beds and refurbished recreational areas as sleeping quarters, which causes increased tension between prisoners, especially in prisons with large gang presences. Additionally, BOP has allowed the prisoner-to-staff ratio to increase from 3. Jacob Sullum Robby Soave Brian Doherty Scott Shackford Joe Lancaster It was Davis, in fact, who angered much of the left when he invited the corporations in to benefit from low-cost labor.

Whereas in a free market, businesses have to pay their employees an adequate wage or the employees can quit and go elsewhere, the corporate state provides a literally captive labor market for industry, socializing the costs to the taxpayers.

As with so much else that government does, it is horrible for the economy on balance, but some people get fabulously wealthy from it.

Here we see a lot of the incentive for more prisons. America and especially California have a sickness right now, an addiction to prisons that distinguishes them as the great incarcerators of the world.

This will not do in a free country. It is corrupting our culture and bankrupting our economy, all to benefit the corporate state that profits in proportion to how many of us are in cages. Right now, California is taking the lead in prison abuse. Instead, it should take the lead toward sensibility and freedom, and start releasing those prisoners who have violated the rights of no one.

By Anthony Gregory. It is also arguably the biggest single problem facing prison systems and its consequences can at worst be life-threatening at best prevent prisons from fulfilling their proper function.

Prisons in over countries exceeded their maximum occupancy rate , with 11 national prison systems at more than double their capacity. Overcrowding is a consequence of criminal justice policy not of rising crime rates, and undermines the ability of prison systems to meet basic human needs, such as healthcare, food, and accommodation.

It also compromises the provision and effectiveness of rehabilitation programmes, educational and vocational training, and recreational activities.

The excessive use of pre-trial detention, and the use of prison for minor, petty offences, are critical drivers of prison population rates.