Should Violent Drug Offenders Be Prison?

The United States has the world's highest incarceration rate. With five percent of the world's population, our country houses nearly twenty-five percent of the world's reported prisoners. Currently there are approximately two million people in American prisons or jails. Since 1984 the prison population for drug offenders has risen from ten percent to now over thirty percent of the total prison population. Federal prisons were estimated to hold 179,204 sentenced inmates in 2007; 95,446 for drug offenses. State prisons held a total of 1,296,700 inmates in 2005; 253,300 for drug offenses. Sixty percent of the drug offenders in prisons are nonviolent and were purely in prison because of drug offenses (Drug War Facts). The question then arises,

The United States’ prison population is currently number one in the world. As a nation that proclaims freedom for citizens, the United States houses more than one million more persons than Russian and almost one million more persons than China. Currently, the United States makes up five percent of the world’s population and imprisons twenty-five percent of the world’s inmate population. Drug offenders who committed no act of violence make up a large portion of the inmates in the United States. County, State, and Federal prisons are so over populated that the private sector has opened up corporate facilities to house convicted persons. The cost each year to hold a person rises, placing larger financial demands on the judicial system. The Judicial System of the United States should reevaluate the sentencing guidelines for non-violent drug offenders to alleviate the high number of people in the prison system.

The War on Drugs is one cause for the mass incarceration that has become apparent within the United States. This refers to a drastic amount of people being imprisoned for mainly non-violent crime (“Mass Incarceration” 2016). In addition to people who are not an immediate threat to society being locked up for a substantial duration of time, the economic consequences are costing states and taxpayers millions of dollars. Specifically, every one in five people incarcerated is in prison due to some

The United States incarcerates more people, per capita, than any other nation in the entire world. State and local prisons and jails account for about 80% of incarcerations. Although crime rates have decreased since the 1990s, incarceration rates have soared. According to a recent Prison Policy Initiative publication, approximately 2.3 million people are currently “locked up” in the United States. Of these 2.3 million people, 1 in 5 are locked up for a drug related offense. Statistics show that prisoners and felons imprisoned for drug related crimes are disproportionately Black and Hispanic. The mass incarceration issue in the United States derives from the many arrests associated with these “offenses” regarding drugs and the war on drugs.

There are too many people in prison in our country and any people in prison today are non-violent drug offenders. The American war on drugs has targeted people in poverty and minorities, who are more likely to be involved in drug use. This has created a pattern of crime and incarceration and “...[a] connection between increased prison rates and lower crime is tenuous and small.” (Wyler). The prison system in our country today focuses on punishment for the inmates rather than rehabilitation for life after their release.

As agreed by Prisons: Problems and Prospects Prisons and the War on Drugs, “incarceration rates for murderers, robbers, and burglars have remained steady over the years, but the number of drug offenders who have been imprisoned has steadily escalated”. The “war on drugs” has, for the most part, added to prison overcrowding. However, it has particularly extended the degree of minorities who are sent to prison. Further readings by Nathan James (2016), “mandatory minimum penalties have contributed to the growing federal prison population”. In addition, this report also added some alternative to this development problem, “Even if Congress chooses not to repeal any mandatory minimum sentences, policymakers could review current mandatory minimum penalties to ensure that they are (1) not excessively severe, (2) narrowly tailored to apply only to those offenders who warrant such punishment, and (3) applied consistently” (James, 2016). “(1) Today narcotics offenders occupy 61% of the beds in federal prisons. (2) Meanwhile, 1 in 7 state facilities continues to operate beyond capacity. (3) Ohio leads the pack with a stunning 182% of capacity” (Smolowe, 1994).

As Americans, we live one of the greatest countries in the world. Things are not perfect, but they can range from good to great. However, there is one area that seems to continuously fall behind our great national standard. This area is the level of people that to fill up our prison system. The United States has only five percent of the world 's population, but it has houses 25 percent of its prisoners, which is around 2.2 million people (Collier, 2014). One of the main reasons the United States has become the prison capital of the world is due to the hard stance on all drugs. This stance led to the use of mandatory minimum sentencing laws to keep drug offenders locked up for longer than they should be.

Currently the United States is one of the major super powers in the whole world and one of the biggest growing country. The main topic of this research is how unfair the justice system is towards drug offenders and how much of a burden the prison population is in towards our country. My research will hopefully find that the drug offenders are being treated more harshly than any other offender out there and the fact that it does impact the amount of incarcerated individuals we have inside the prison and causing a prison population crisis.

Mass incarceration has been a huge social problem since the 1980s; it came hand in hand with the war on drugs. Elliott Currie, a professor of criminology and law, suggests that building more prisons, imposing longer sentences, and applying harsh punishments will not lower the incarceration rate. In his chapter on “Assessing the Prison Experiment,” he explained that the increase of crime rate is not the sole reason that mass incarceration occurs, and it was also because courts

The United States government has a high mandatory minimum for first time nonviolent drug charges. Therefore, offenders stay in the prison system longer and facilities are not able to properly provide the necessary accommodations to catch up due to the increase of non-violent prisoners that fill the system. According to the article “Tests for Reducing Prison Populations” by Erik Eckholm, one of the problems is that the United States government is trying to come up with better mandatory sentencing and strengthen the crumbling rehabilitation system for nonviolent prisoners (1). The Overcrowding of prisons within the United States is an issue that needs to be addressed because there are too many tax dollars being spent, prison sentences change or do not necessarily fit the crime, and drug offenders and nonviolent criminals, who need services other than prison time, are draining the system.

There’s no denying that there are a substantial amount of Americans behind bars today, and with the continued erosion of biblically grounded morals in today’s society, it should come as no surprise that there will continue to be evil people, in a progressively darkening world. In the article “The Prison Problem” written by David Brooks, for The New York Times, he goes over some different causations to the steady number of persons behind bars in the prison system. He states however “The Drug war is not even close to being the primary driver behind the sharp rise in incarceration.” (Brookes 5) Putting to silence one of the many incorrect beliefs about the prison system, and how there are so many people being sent to prison. It

Everyone was born in good. Society has dramatically affected in individuals’ characteristics. Even though using drug is illegal in some states, the drug industry is still working underground. However, the laws of banning drugs use was launched in the early of 20th century in the US, many topics about appropriate amount of time in prison for both drug user and drug distributors are still attracting people who keep fighting for human rights. I strongly believe that, the amount of time in prison should be different in terms of the amount of crack consumption between users and distributors.

As people walk down the gentle streets of their neighborhoods, sometimes they are blind to the fact that others like them, are locked away for years. Crimes involving the distribution of illegal substances, run rampant throughout the streets of the United States. These offences on many levels, are considered non-violent. Yet, these so-called “crimes”, land people in prison for long periods of time and often the sentences are more intense than the crime itself. Has nobody thought about putting an end to their suffering, and giving them the freedom they so rightfully deserve? Nothing major has been done to combat this ever-growing problem. Attempts made by convicts to explain their case are quickly dismissed, as they are often considered mentally

Gogek, Ed. "To Treat Drug Addiction, We'll Still Need Jail Time." News week. Accessed 15 Jan. 2017.

Austin, J., Irwin, J. (2001). “It's About Time: America's Imprisonment Binge.” Belmont, CA: Wadsworth Publishing Co