Cost Of Incarceration

     Not only is it becoming expensive to keep someone incarcerated, but also the population shown in these prisons is also outrageous. The effect that the laws have had on people was more towards minorities and women. Minorities were the biggest offenders in NYS prisons under the Rockefeller Drug Laws. The number of racial gaps had increased from having 33,000

All the drug related charges are forcing the prison population into overwhelming numbers. Were drug usage decriminalized this could relieve some of the stress on the penal system. Baird states in her piece that the prison population would diminish greatly with legalization and all the money saved can then be used for many more beneficial things “…like treatment for addiction, health, and prevention.” Walter, standing on the

Recent studies of drug court programs show that drug court is effective at reducing recidivism and lowering cost by offering drug court and treatment as compared to the cost of jail or prison for offenders. According to the Office of justice Programs (2017), The National Institute of Justice’s Multisite Adult Drug Court Evaluation (MADCE) completed in 2014 found that: 76 % of Drug court participants reported less drug as compared to 56 percent of probationers and 46% of drug court participants were less likely to test positive for drugs as compared to 29% of probationers. Criminal activity was also lower with drug court participants 53 % than with probationers 40% and there were fewer re arrests of drug court participants 52 % as compared to probationers at 62 %. Regarding cost effectiveness, the NADCP (2017) reports that "for every $1.00 invested in Drug Court, taxpayers save as much as $3.36 in avoided criminal justice costs alone". In terms of money savings for "victimization", it is reported that for every $1 spent, $27 are saved. Drug court has major advantages compared to the traditional way of punishing offenders in the legal system. Individuals cannot learn to make changes in jail or prison, the environment is simply not conducive to change. Drug court offers an opportunity for individuals to still be held accountable for their offenses while receiving treatment to reduce the likelihood of re offending.

Summary: This bill would increase use of the “drug trafficking safety valve” which allows certain exceptions to mandatory minimum laws for defendants who meet certain criteria and would institute “release valves” for low-risk, old or dying offenders. It directs the use of mandatory minimums and sentence enhancements only in cases with “higher-level traffickers” and would reduce life sentences for some drug offenders with repeated offenses to 25 years. This bill also enhances the ability of defendants to earn time off their sentence through good behavior and requires the government to issue “fiscal impact statements for sentencing bills” and share sentencing costs in “pre-sentencing reports.” The bill would hand the power to prosecute simple possession charges back the states. The goal of the legislation is to curb over-criminalization, expand sentencing alternatives through the creation of drug and mental health courts and return of probation, save imprisonment for those with a career of violent offenses, reduce the likelihood of re-offending, and bring accountability and openness to the system. This bill would also allow for retroactive resentencing under the new

Since the first drug court was founded, over 3,400 drug courts exist today in every U.S. state and territory (NIJ.gov). The national institute of justice reported that a 33 percent reduction in rearrest rates for drug court graduates compared with other like offenders (Neubauer). The National Association of Drug Court professionals reports that 75 percent of drug court graduates remain arrest-free for at least two years after leaving the program. They also report that drug courts alone reduce crime as much as 45 percent more than other sentencing options (NADCP.org). Not only does drug court benefit the offenders and society, it also benefits taxpayer money. Drug court treatment for the offenders typically cost anywhere between $2,000 to $6,000 annually, depending on the severity of the crime and depending on how long the judge feels the program should last. Instead of wasting taxpayer money and sending them to jail for their addiction, the money is used to treat the offenders and help them so that they don’t end up in prison again as well as beating their addiction along the way. The reason why drug courts have been so successful is because they use therapeutic jurisprudence through the community to help treat their

Who pays for incarceration Jill Benoit Kaplan University CM107 Professor Reich December 9, 2015 Date: December 9, 2015 To: Department of Corrections From: Jill Benoit Subject: Who Pays? ”Each year, the United States spends $80 billion to lock away more than 2.4 million people in its jails and prisons. ” Budgets are blown on housing, transportation, and higher education. Costs per year are more than the correctional budget allows and over half of the population in the system have several sentences to serve. These costs affect incarcerated populations, families and communities from whom they are separated from. (aneta deVuono-powell, 2015)

The main argument within this article was that America has a poor approach to incarceration and is ultimately an expensive failure. However, the article provided many points on how our justice system could be improved upon. For example, they could change the harsh sentencing rules, crimes that are currently felonies (drugs), and the rehabilitation programs. All of these things would help to lower the incarceration rate which would ultimately lower overcrowding within our jails and prisons. Though these tools may take time to be put in place they would have highly beneficial outcomes.

This unfair legislature depletes law enforcement resources, that instead could be utilized for other serious crimes. In federal prisons, it costs $29, 000 on average to maintain a single inmate, taking possession of 25% of the budget distributed to the Department of Justice. As written in the a Washington Post Article, US District Attorney Judge Mark Bennett stated that “he couldn’t forget was the total, more than 1,100 nonviolent offenders and counting to whom he had given mandatory minimum sentences he often considered unjust. That meant more than $200 million in taxpayer money he thought had been misspent.” . Apart from the financial aspect, mandatory minimum sentencing simply fills to reduce crime in society. Over the years, the amount of people arrested for drug offenses

Incarceration should not be the only form of punishment in the United States just like it is not in most developed nations. I agree with Dr. Bryant’s week three statements about the word discretion being used as camouflage for discrimination. The stakeholders in the criminal justice system used huge amount of discretion when performing their duties. In this case, the law enforcement officers, prosecutors, defenders, judges etc. The police officer can decide when making an arrest to handcuff the accused, send the accused to the community based service program or gave the accused a ride to his or her parent and warn the accused not to do it again. It all depends on how the officer chooses to use the discretion at his disposal. Indiscriminate

In addition to discrimination, the author also adds that the bill costs a lot of money to have people in prison. In the same article by (Yassky) "The second cost is that an unacceptable number of Americans are in prison". The cost of incarcerating people would rise and so would a lot of problem within the prison as well. The cost to have many people incarcerated would come at cost taxpayer a lot of money. Also, the cost to have to hire more officers when there not all of the inmate was a problem. In addition to already had some law that plays a part in this area. I do agree with the author in this part of argument because he states that cost to have many people incarcerated is too much some can be admitted for a simple thing such theft.

Once upon a time, Americans could proudly say that America was the land of freedom and opportunity. As the Pledge of Allegiance states, “One nation under God, Indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.” However, under the current criminal justice system, more and more people lose their liberties because of the crimes they have committed. According to Roy Walmsley, a consultant of the United Nations and Associate of the International Center for prison studies, “In October 2013, the incarceration rate of the United States of America was the highest in the world, at 716 per 100,000 of the national population. While the United States represent about 4.4 percent of the world 's population, it houses

America holds 16.3 trillion dollars in debt and the debt continues to increase for the next twenty years. Arizona follows with the accumulating debt of 42.7 billion dollars. Arizona crimes rates increased in the last decade and the state now serves over 42,000 inmates by providing food and cells at the taxpayers’ expense. To accommodate the numerous prisoners, Arizona expanded the spending on the prison system while ignoring methods that cut state’s expense and the escalating crime rate. Instead of wasting taxpayers’ precious dollars and overcrowding prisons, Arizona Legislatures must focus on finding new reforms to limit the population and cost of prisons without harming its citizens.

Although the determination of a cost benefit ratio for SACPA is beyond the scope of the available data, the savings of $2317 per offender allows us to project about $97.3 million in savings over the long term for the nearly 42,000 offenders affected during the first year of SACPA implementation (Anglin et al. 2013). Given such a substantial finding suggests that moving drug offenders from the correctional system and

Drug Policy and the incarceration of low-level drug offenders is the primary cause of mass

Alex Kreit states in the article “The Drug Decriminalization Option” that drug prohibition expenditures stand at around $30 billion overall, with marijuana law enforcement being $10 billion alone annually, federal expenditures stand at about $15 billion annually (Kreit, 2010). In an argument defending the criminalization of drugs, whatever data you use to backup your statements, it is impossible to deny the fact that drug enforcement spending consumes a significant percentage of the countries corrections and law enforcements resources. According to the article, there are studies which have found that increases in spending for drug enforcement lead to reductions in the budget for enforcement in non drug related crimes such as robberies. The money and taxes spent does not all have to go to law enforcement related expenses, the money could have been invested in education. Despite all the government spending on drug prohibition, there is not much evidence that these efforts have had an effect on the availability or drug use rates. According to the article, nearly half of high school seniors have used an illegal drug by the time they graduate, some say it is easier to obtain than legal substances such as alcohol. There is no reason for the