Transcript America`s Prison System

America’s Prison System
Sentencing Issues
Goals of Sentencing
• Deterrence –
• General deterrence –
• Specific Deterrence –
Incapacitation
• Gets criminals off the streets and protects the
public
• Reduces…
• What could be a possible disadvantage of
this?
Rehabilitation
• Changing the individual lawbreaker through
correctional interventions
• Doesn’t…
• Why has it failed?
Retribution
• “Let the punishment fit the crime”
• Retributivists aim to dispense punishment
according to an offender's moral
blameworthiness (as measured by the severity
of crimes of which the offender was
convicted).
• Ideally, the harshness of punishments should
be proportionate to the seriousness of crimes.
Types of Sentences
• Jails are short-term lock-up centers normally run by
counties and operated by county sheriffs. Inmates housed
in jails include unconvicted defendants awaiting trial who
are unable to make bail, convicted misdemeanants, and
felons serving jail time as a result of probation violations.
• Prisons are long-term penal facilities operated by state and
federal governments. Most prison inmates are convicted
felons serving sentences of more than one year.
U.S. Prison System
• A record 7 million people, one in ever 32 US adults,
were behind bars, on probation, or on parole by the
end of 2006
• By 2011 the
• Cost to American
• NJ – 26, 827 prisoners
• Cali – 174, 282 prisoners
US vs. the World
Sentencing Issues: Race
• Dontez Orr
Stopped for unlighted license plate.
Pled guilty after police found one rock
of crack. Not granted intervention.
Brian Biddulph
Stopped after car chase. Pled guilty after
police found crack and paraphernalia.
Granted intervention.
Drug Statistics
• 2.3 million behind bars – 3x amount from
1987
• 25% are locked up for drug offenses
• $70 billion year on corrections
• Whites engage in drug offenses at a higher
rate, yet African Americans are locked up at a
rate that is 10x more than that of whites
Solutions?
• Decriminalize drug possession