Before getting into studying the field of criminal justice I learned that my previous knowledge about prisons and prisoners was either completely wrong or very incomplete. My first original belief was that the worst kind of people were in jail. That if you walked into a jail every person that you would see there are the worst of the worst. Another original belief was that if someone was in prison then they did something that put them there. These original beliefs came from the typical sources you get growing up, your parents, school teachers, and peers. Growing up I was taught that prison was where the terrible people went and it’s a scary place that you don’t want to be. But the moment that impacted me the most about prisoners was my senior …show more content…
With this experience and adding to my original knowledge of prisoners being bad people I thought that I knew exactly the type of person that was in prison and I had a very good understanding of the type of people that made up the prison system. When it comes to the prison itself my original knowledge came from my one interaction in Belize and a television show. Growing up I had little interaction with the prison system at all. The only memories of prison was in a television show I watched and that was called, Psych. During this show they would make little humorous remarks about prison being not as bad as people say. For example the main characters in this show would say, “We are talking about the Santa Barbara jail not San Quinton, people compare it to a mid-range sandals resort.” This show made it seem as if jail really wasn’t that bad of a place to be. Unfortunately I took this to heart and had the opinion that prisons in America must not be that bad. With this being my only exposure to the prison system I knew that I did not have a good understanding of the system but thought it wasn’t as bad as people made it out to
The History of prisons goes through many eras. Many of these eras have a major impact on today’s prison system. The different was that the system worked and didn’t work really showed what was possibly and what should not be tried again. Each era tried to do something new are recreate something that had already been done by making changes to the way that they treated the inmates all the way to how they were housed and how much contact they had with one another. The different eras gave the present day prison system many great things to think about. Such as large capacity housing so you can properly use all the space in the prison and hold it to capacity. There is also the parole system that gives inmates a chance to work get out early and spend the rest of their sentence on the outside. These many great traits that the prison system today has all come from the hundreds of years of trial and error that occurred throughout the world.
Yes, all of the time a search warrant will require probable cause. Our important constitutional right The Fourth Amendment means that police cannot arrest or make search without probable cause. For example, the police cannot just come into a residence unless the proper documentation is in hand such as a search warrant signed by a judge. Or if they are in
It is interesting to see how our prison came about. Through the years and centuries we have been trying to find the right way to deal with criminals. Yes, criminals where dealt with brutally and maybe too brutal for the crimes committed. Today someone can commit murder and get 25 years. I don't feel that during these 25 years the criminal will really get reformed. How many prisoners get out of prison and go back to society as normal people. It seems to me that they usually have been in prison for so many years they have trouble going back to society. The only way they know how to live is how they lived in prison. In prison they get a bed to sleep in, food and clothing and they don't have to work hard for it. So they are quick to commit another crime to go back there. Seeing this happen over and over I feel that you really can't reform our prisoners or the prisons they are locked up in. In Prays essay we
The court structure in Kansas consists of four levels and they are the municipal court, district court, the court of appeals and the supreme court. All four levels are important and play slightly different roles depending on the crime.
Have you ever been to prison before? Unfortunately it is not uncommon for many people in the United States to end up in prison at any given time in their life. Chances are, if you have not been to prison you know somebody that has been imprisoned, as America has the highest rate of incarceration in the whole world. Although America’s population only accounts for 5% of the world's population, we have the highest prison rate at 25% of the whole world’s incarcerated population (Hillary Rodham Clinton, 2015). Why do we continue to see these prisons overcrowded, and how exactly does this affect the inmates?
Growing up, my father was a prosecutor. I always had this image of good versus evil and thought that these bad people were sent to prisons to be punished for their actions. Throughout this course and through the many readings we were assigned, I have started to see my perspective shift. These ideas of putting people away for committing crimes has been so pounded in my brain over the last twenty years that it is hard to perform a 180. Yet, I feel that know I have a deeper understanding of the complexity to the prison and justice system, realizing that this notion of good v. evil is not reality.
The United States criminal justice system has failed to rehabilitate criminals. Even after being punished for their crimes, convicts continue their wrongdoings without having gained valuable lessons from being incarcerated and are sent back to prison. Jails are supposed to aid those imprisoned by helping them gain skills that will reduce future occurrences and enable them to act morally in society. Punishing criminals is not as productive as it is thought to be, shown by the increased incarceration rate from 250,000 in 1976 to almost 2 million by 2003 (Lynch 26, 49). Instead of learning how to work towards managing their problems, prisoners are expected to learn from their mistakes by being
The subject of prison evokes fearful and violent images seen in movies or on television; outdated clichés consisting of men eating stale bread and drinking dirty water that are intended to repulse people and deter them from committing crimes and ending up in such a position. Unfortunately, the reality of the American prison system is just as troubling as the dated stereotypes surrounding it. Despite its success in keeping dangerous offenders off the streets, the modern prison system fails in fulfilling its original design of restoring criminals to being productive members of society. It has proven to be an inefficient and ineffective system by focusing on punishment over rehabilitation, leading to issues such as overcrowding, wasting taxpayers’ money and a high recidivism rate.
James Gilligan relays an enlightening message in his article, Beyond the Prison Paradigm: From Provoking Violence to Preventing It by Creating “Anti-Prisons”, about the history and sole purpose of jails. Gilligan dates his research about jails all the way back from the first civilization known to man, Sumerian, to the jails we see and know so well today. At the beginning of time jails literally meant “house of darkness” which when compared to any of today’s jails is very similar to our maximum security facilities with solitary confinement. Jails were first used as a place to house those citizens, who chose not follow the social norms of society, and used a very
Growing up, we are surrounded with images of the prison. In movies, we see a false reality of the prison, which leads us to believe we know what life is like in the prison. Few people know the truth of the prison system, this contributes to the normalization of the prison and the systematic incarceration.When Angela Davis interviewed women in three women’s prisons, she was astonished to find their prior awareness of prison came from the many Hollywood films they had seen.
The United State’s prison system was initially designed to punish and rehabilitate individuals whom were convicted of a felony or other serious offense. Inmates are sentenced for a certain amount of time, or the entirety of their life based on how serious of a crime that person has committed. The Idea of imprisoning a person as a form of punishment dates back to medieval times however, it wasn’t until right before the American Revolution humane prisons started appearing in this country. Today, prisons are more populated than they have ever been and are functioning not only as a place to reform people’s morals, but also as a highly profitable investment for the wealthy to exploit. The Prison system is so devoted to making
The American prisons system is a failed system. It needs tremendous change so that it can truly serve its role in the American society. For instance, the high rate of recidivism is sufficient evidence that the system has serious deficiencies. Emphasis ought to be made on the basic mission of these correctional facilities because inmates must be educated, rehabilitated, and ensured of
The privatizing of the prison systems, around every country is a huge revenue source the overcrowding and use of prisoners as a profit tool and; it simply isn’t meant for rehabilitation, but as a tool for cheap labor, convicting the innocent, and monetary gain. Prison this is the place where all the lowlifes go the scum, rapist, and desperate marauder’s that stalk in the night. Prison is in the place where the bad people go away from society to serve a potential life sentence for one’s crimes or for years on end all the while trying to correct their deviant tendencies. Yes, we all see prison as a place for reform of the morally corrupt to become better through the lesson of freedom and most rights taken away. To be put into a harsh environment
Growing up, almost everyone is told never to break the law or there will be severe consequences. This includes many things happening but the one most talked about it prison. Prison rates in the United States are at an all time highest not only in the country, but in a world as well. This has caused many problems that affect not only the people within the U.S, but the country as a whole as well.
In a valiant attempt to clean the streets of societies, criminals are put away in rehabilitation institutions called prisons. It was a belief that they would learn their mistakes, repent and rejoin societies as better people. On the contrary, what happened was the cultivation of an environment leading to the evolution of prison subculture. In a constant power struggle amongst nations, politicians and people within society, many fail to perceive or notice a battle of another sort. That is the battle of those trying to survive in an environment predominant with racism, hate, violence and gangs. Prison subculture evolved, when doing time wasn't just about doing your time but became an intricate experience of politics, power,