How has prison reform changed in the last 15 years and what are we doing about prison reform now?

Question

I am only interested in the american prison system. Also, what kind of changes have happened that increased the incarceration rate to 1 in 100 americans in prison. What type of programs (if any) do we use to help the prisoners enter into society and maintain like ordinary citizens after they are paroled, and how many wind up returning to prison because of the lack of programs. What are we doing to prevent the "revolving door?"

Answer 1

There are not enough prisons to hold all the criminals that need to be locked up. There has been cases in the news where cons have been released due to over crowding and have raped and murdered innocent citizens.

There are over 500,000 illegal aliens in US prisons for violent crimes. I say we can do a better job. Sheriff Joe in Texas has the correct idea housing prisoners in tents and feeding them cheaply. Guess what? In Joe's jurisdiction the recidivism rate is less than most parts of the country

Answer 2

Society is throwing its morals away (i.e. g*y rights, and other immoral acts ) We are showing our children its ok to do immoral things, and then people support this c**p!  The mentality and common sense of people are degrading rather fast. The so call criminal justice system is cow-tailing to the bleeding hearts, so they pamper the prisoners. " Our weak criminal pampering system recycles the criminals. " The punishments are far to weak, you steal something in Saudi Arabia and see what happens, they cut a finger off, after a couple offenses its off with the hand! Not much crime there! Our government makes money from the drug bust, so they redistribute the drugs. And our crime rates are so high because the citizens stand and watch the governments legislate them out of their 2nd Amendment right to defend themselves against crimes.  Oh sure you can have a gun in your house, but your not allowed to carry it while you go to the ATM.!!  Uncle Sam's misguided children ( Governments ) needs to be disciplined, when you ignore a child it does what it wants...a time out wont correct them, you need to take a belt to their a**!!

Answer 3

well i heard that a majority of these inmates are over drug related offenses.  obviously clinton and bush's war on drugs is NOT working.  you have to get to the root of the problem of why people are doing drugs and why people continue to do drugs intead of blamign it on supply.  I live in the netherlands, a place full of drugs, yet less that 5% of the pop here does drugs. we also have the lowest percentage of people incarcerated compared to the rest of the EU & the US (except norway and sweden ) ..i think a connection between drug policies and the percentage of the pop in prision can be made here.  sorry if this doesnt answer your question, but it might be related to it

Answer 4

We need to terminate the exessively expensive, useless, and retarded war on drugs. It has not worked,  and never will work. It's costing taxpayers way too much, and incarcerating peple for nonviolent crimes is a joke. We need to rethink our boundaries, and become more common sense oriented as a nation.