Author : Bureau of Prisons
Publisher : CreateSpace
ISBN 13 : 9781490576794
Total Pages : 92 pages
Book Rating : 4.5/5 (767 download)
Book Synopsis Growing Inmate Crowding Negatively Affects Inmates, Staff, and Infrastructure by : Bureau of Prisons
Download or read book Growing Inmate Crowding Negatively Affects Inmates, Staff, and Infrastructure written by Bureau of Prisons and published by CreateSpace. This book was released on 2013-06-30 with total page 92 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Growing inmate crowding negatively affects inmates, staff, and infrastructure: a report to congressional requesters Bureau of Prisons Prison overcrowding is when the demand for space in prisons in a jurisdiction exceeds the capacity for prisoners in the place. Prison overcrowding can occur when the rate at which people are sentenced to prison exceeds the rate at which other prisoners are released or die, thereby freeing up prison space, and new prisons cannot be built fast enough to handle the additions. Studies have shown that two types of offenders are responsible for the majority of sentences to prisons: drug offenders and recidivists. The United States nation has a history of punishing minor offenses with major punishments; in addition the U.S. institutes a 'zero-tolerance' method of policing, mandatory sentencing laws and have essentially taken away the ability for a judge to exercise common sense judgment when sentencing an offender. As a nation and a people, we live by our Constitution and Bill of Rights, but what happens when due process and procedure get to the point where using common sense is totally lost and everything that happens in our judicial system is based solely on modus operandi? "The criminal law should once again be more like the common law, with judges and juries not merely finding fact, but making law on the basis of universal principles of fairness, circumstance and seriousness and crafting penalties to the exigencies of the crime."