Homework answers / question archive / Give your thoughts on why existing programs like Head Start, Job Corps, and Enterprise Zones, which have been well documented and may well be contributing to the current decline in crime are not doing more or utilized more to reduce crime and subsequent imprisonment)

Give your thoughts on why existing programs like Head Start, Job Corps, and Enterprise Zones, which have been well documented and may well be contributing to the current decline in crime are not doing more or utilized more to reduce crime and subsequent imprisonment)

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Give your thoughts on why existing programs like Head Start, Job Corps, and Enterprise Zones, which have been well documented and may well be contributing to the current decline in crime are not doing more or utilized more to reduce crime and subsequent imprisonment). Discuss things like government funding, community support, and program awareness

The Prison Industrial Complex Chapter 10 It’s About Time Study of the American prison system revealed that most of the unprecedented numbers of people sent to prison are guilty of petty property and drug crimes or violations of their conditions of probation or parole Even offenders who commit frequent felonies and who define themselves as “outlaws, dope fiends, crack dealers, or gang bangers” commit mostly petty felonies These “high-rate” and “super-predator” offenders, as they have been mislabeled by policy makers and criminologist, are mostly uneducated, unskilled, and highly disorganized persons who have no access to any form of rewarding, meaningful conventional life With time they either “grow out” of these behavioral patterns or transition to an even more desperate existence that often leads to alcoholism, drug addiction, chronic unemployment, homelessness, mental illness, bad health, and an early death Rehabilitation has been abandoned and prisons have been redefined as places of punishment Prisons have become true human warehouses often highly crowded, violent, and cruel The Financial Cost Most people are aware that prisons are expensive to build and operate Previous estimates routinely cited by public officials have dramatically underestimated the amounts of money spent on housing prisoners and building new prisons Operating Cost Since 1991, the amount of money required to operate just the nation’s prisons has grown from $18.1 billion to $30.3 billion Prison administrators are estimating costs at about $20,500 per year, some states reporting operational costs of over $30,000 and others under $15,000 The most expensive prison systems tend to be relatively smaller and are in states that are more affluent, predominantly white prisoner populations, have low crime rates and low incarceration rates, and have organized labor The least expensive prison systems are in the South and tend to be in states that are less affluent, predominantly black prisoner populations, have high crime rates and high incarceration rates, and have a lack of organized labor Construction Costs Because prisons vary dramatically in their “mission,” construction (and operating) costs vary dramatically Total institutions which prisoners are not only housed but also guarded, fed, clothed, worked and received some schooling and medical and psychological treatment These needs require in addition to housing, infirmaries, classrooms, laundries, offices, maintenance shops, boiler rooms, and kitchens But these costs are just part of the costs associated with building a new prison First, the prison construction of then needs to be financed Instead of using current tax revenues to pay directly for this construction, the state does what most citizen do when they buy a house, it borrows money The borrowing is done by selling bonds or using other financing instruments that may double depending on the prevailing interest rates Second, there are other costs associated with the construction costs themselves These include architectural and legal fees, project management fees prison equipment, and site improvement costs for removing existing structures and hazardous waste materials Third, prison construction costs are further increased by errors in original bid by contractors and cost overruns caused by delay in construction Prison versus Education Budgetary battles in which important state services for children, the elderly, the sick, and the poor are stripped to pay for prisons have already begun In the coming years, great cutbacks in funds for public education, medical services for the poor, highway construction, and other state services will occur A recent study from the Justice Policy Institute and the Correctional Association of New York found that spending for state public universities has dropped by 29 percent, while funding for prisons has increased by 76 percent The “Incarceration Reduces Crime” Debate The most hotly debated topic today is whether the imprisonment binge has reduced crime rates Those largely responsible for these set of circumstances are elected officials who have criticized the crime issue and passed laws resulting in more punitive sentencing policies, judges who have delivered more and longer prison terms, and government criminal justice officials who have supported the punitive trend in criminal justice polices, promising that the great expansion of prison populations would reduce crime in our society Since 1995 crime rates have begun a steady decline while incarceration rates have continued to increase The continuing increase in the prison population is not due to more people being sentenced to prison but due to prisoners serving longer sentences Criminologist offer two scientific bases in support of the imprisonment binge First, there must be a steady and consistent association over time between incarceration rates and crime rates Second, changes in other factors known to be associated with crime rates must be controlled or, at least, acknowledged The Arguments in Favor of “Incarceration Reduces Crime” The pro-incarceration advocates have a vary simplistic two-variable equation as incarceration goes up, crime rates must go down To provide the scientific bases for this argument, the U.S. Department of Justice has played a key role in both articulating this proposition as a reasonable policy and funding studies to demonstrate the causal relationship between imprisonment and crime Attorney General William Barr under the 1980s George Bush administration, argued that the country had a “clear choice” of either building more prisons or tolerating higher violent crime rates This view implied that increasing the government’s capacity to imprison is the single most effective strategy for reducing crime President William Clinton’s administration advocated for the 1994 Crime Bill designed to encourage states to increase the use of imprisonment by adopting “truth in sentencing laws” that would require inmates convicted of violent crimes to serve 85 percent of their sentences States that adopted such laws were rewarded with federal funds to help pay for the construction of more prison beds The Argument against “Incarceration Reduces Crime” The major flaw in the “incarceration reduces crime” policy is its simplistic nature Imprisonment advocates have completely rejected or ignored the long and rich history of criminology that has shown that many other social forces, in addition to the response of the criminal justice system, affect crime rates Crime is the product of a very complex set of individual, social, economic, political, an even random circumstance A more careful examination of all available information demonstrates major inconsistencies in the proincarceration argument and lend greater support to the conclusion that more imprisonment has little to do with crime rates America’s Farm System for Criminals Most people who engage in crime do so not as isolated individuals, but as participants in various social organizations groups, or “social systems”, each of which has its own rules and values Some groups in our society (often because of subjection to reduced circumstances such as poverty, idleness, and incarceration over an extended period) develop preferences for deviant lifestyles Since crime is not the sole product of individual motives, efforts to punish the individual without addressing the social forces that produced that individual will fail Most street crime involves groups, organizations, and networks In effect, America has created a lower-class culture designed to produce new cohorts of street criminals each generation Organized criminal groups where players move the ranks when players are temporarily or permanently removed (arrested, imprisoned, or killed) and they are replaced by others to continue in crime This characterization of criminal operations also explains why the War on Drugs, which has been going on for two decades, has failed Even if a criminal operation dies out, new crime games appear Only the types of games being played change from season to season Our Prison System in the Twenty-First Century Where are We Headed? Previously discussed Clinton era policies composed a plan of the following components: • • • • Add 100,000 police officers Increase the proportion of adult arrests resulting in a felony conviction Increase the proportion of convictions resulting in a prison sentence Adopt a “truth in sentencing” policy that would require offenders convicted of violent crimes to serve 85 percent of their terms The area of change has been in sentencing policy The Bureau of Justice Statistics now estimates that newly sentenced inmates will serve a minimum of forty-two months in prison as opposed the previously reported figure of twenty-five months It’s About Time We must turn away from the excessive use of prisons The current incarceration binge will eventually consume large amounts of tax money, which will be diverted from essential public services such as education, childcare, mental health, and medical services The very services that will have a far greater impact on reducing crime than will building more prisons if we are to truly reduce crime rates, society must embark on a decade-long strategy that reverses the social and economic trends of the previous decade The “crime reduction” reforms we have in mind have little to do with criminal justice reform Rather these reforms would serve to reduce poverty, single-parent families headed by females, teenage pregnancies and abortions, welfare dependency, unemployment, high drop-out rates, drug abuse, and inadequate health care These are social indicators that have proven to be predictive of high crime rate The programs and policies that will work, such as better prenatal health care for pregnant mothers, better health care for children to protect them against life-threatening illnesses Head Start, Job Corps, and Enterprise Zones, have been well documented and may well be contributing to the current decline in crime There is also a need a level of commitment from our major corporate leaders to reduce the flight of jobs, especially the so-called blue-collar and industrial job, from this country to Third World nations where cheap labor can be exploited for profits but at tremendous cost to this country For the country to cut its losses and move forward, one must begin by reducing the rate of growth in the prison population and reallocating those “savings” to prevention programs that target at-risk youth and their families Reduce Prison Terms Many methods of reducing prison populations have been advocated Some argue that certain classes of felony crimes should be reclassified as misdemeanors or decriminalized completely There was a great deal of support to do this for many minor drug offenses Others claim that a significant number of those convicted of felonies could be diverted from prison to probation or to new alternatives to prison, including intensive probation, house arrest, electronic surveillance, and greater use fines and restitutions For alternatives to work, legislators, prosecutors, police, judges, and correctional agencies will all have to agree on new laws and policies to implement them Even if the forces that are presently driving the punitive response to crime decreased considerably, it would take several years to work through disagreements on law and policy that would slowly produce an easing of prison population growth It is believed the most direct solution that would have an immediate, dramatic impact on prison crowding and would not affect public safety is to shorten prison terms For such a policy to work, prison terms would have to be shortened across the board, and include inmates serving lengthy sentences for crimes safety Humanize Our Prisons American prisons are at best, warehouses where prisoners stagnate and are rendered less capable of coping with outside society or at worst, cruel and dangerous maximum prisons where prisoners are damaged and suffer severely There is the obvious consequence of having to receive back into our society released prisoners who have been critically damaged by their imprisonment Prisons are inherently punitive and can operate efficiently and effectively while treating prisoners in a manner consistent with the minimum standards and rights for prisoners that have been formulated by many private and public bodies Several features of a system of incarceration should be acceptable to anyone interested in accomplishing the prisons dominate goals, punishments and incapacitation, and not engaging in unnecessary and counterproductive punitive practices These are as follows: No cruel and unusual punishment regarding overcrowding, controlled prison violence, access to medical care Safety for prisoners to avoid being attacked, raped, ad murdered Health, prisoners should have access to resources and services required to maintain physical and mental health Rehabilitation, prisoners should have access to programs that promote education, vocational training, and a variety of treatment programs Re-entry assistance, community-based programs operated by nonprofit organizations are needed to help facilitate the re-entry process