This version of the paper will become your final draft and will be submitted to your instructor for grading. Be sure your composition meets the following scoring criteria.
• Analyze a criminal justice situation from a particular career perspective.
• Identify ethical considerations related to developing solutions to prison overcrowding.
• Describe the viability of solutions to a criminal justice situation and their impact on selected role.
• Prepare an organized paper including a title page, introduction, perspectives, solutions, conclusion, and references.
• Utilize credible evidence from one library and one Internet source to support identified solutions in the paper.
• Apply feedback to final paper.
• Communicate effectively in writing.
In your paper include the following:
• Title page.
• Introduction.
• Perspectives section.
• Solutions section.
• Conclusion (that brings all main points together and reaches a final conclusion about the issue).
• Reference page.
Include information from at least one library and one Internet article to support your responses. Provide in-text citations and references for sources.
Use any or all of the resources in the previous Academic Skill Building studies to assist you in completing your paper.
Your completed assignment should be 4 and a half pages in length of content, not counting the title page and reference page. Be sure you follow APA guidelines for formatting and referencing your resources.
The first draft is down below so you can get an idea on what's going on with this assignment
Introduction
Overcrowding in prisons is a problem that poses great risks to the inmates and the corrective officers. This includes the inmates as well as the prison workers. Much have been said and written about the threat overcrowding poses to the inmates. However, there has not been much focus on the threat to the workers in prisons who include wardens among others. There are a couple of reasons as to why overcrowding is considered to be dangerous. For instance, it is likely to cause health issues among the people in prisons (Hough, Allen, & Solomon, 2008). It is likely to result in increased cases of assault among the inmates also. Further, inmate classification could be a problem. Overcrowding also poses a problem when it comes to sharing of equipment, inmate recreation, visiting, housing, security checks, feeding and discipline in general.
The problem of overcrowding can be looked at from different perspectives. It is from these perspectives that solutions can be found. It is worth noting that varying solutions will be found based on the perspective from which the problem is looked at. The two major perspectives from which the problem can be viewed are the perspective of the criminal justice role and the perspective of the prisoners.
Section 1- perspectives
The problem of overcrowding in prisons can be viewed in different perspectives. As a prison warden, the problem would be viewed from the aspect of handling inmates, providing them with basic needs and controlling them while they are in prison. Prison wardens are responsible for providing inmates with food, housing, clothes as well as other essentials. If the jails are overcrowded, it will mean that the wardens will have problems sharing these essentials which are limited to the many and increasing number of inmates.
In order to identify the problems, prison wardens need to know the number of inmates they have, the number of inmates the prisons can accommodate, the availability of essential needs for inmates and the number of wardens available for handling inmates (Hough, Allen, & Solomon, 2008). If the number of inmates is higher than the number that can be accommodated, the amount of available resources and the number of wardens required, then it will mean that there is a problem of overcrowding that needs to be addressed the soonest possible.
The biggest challenges that a warden faces in an overcrowding situation is that they get it rough when trying to share food stuffs, clothing and housing among the inmates. Additionally, the fact that there will be a high risk of health issues means that the wardens are also susceptible while at the same time they are required to observe inmates health. It is not easy controlling a bug crowd of inmates. There will be more cases of violence and assault in such prisons and wardens will be responsible for controlling them (Mahaworker, 2006). This makes their work very challenging. Additionally, they will be required to regulate visiting. They will need to find the best balance of visitors so that those coming to see their people do not overcrowd the prisons more and that each prisoner gets relatively equal opportunities to be visited.
Prioritizing the problems by a warden would be different in that they are likely first to consider the availability of essentials and how easily these essentials can be distributed among inmates. In other words, their priority will be more on the basic needs in prisons that will uphold human dignity and prisoners' rights.
Section 2- Solutions
As it has been mentioned earlier in this article, the problem of overcrowding in prisons put the lives of inmates, as well as correctional officers in danger. In additions to some of the threats that have been mentioned, overcrowding also increases the prison costs since confining so many people is costly. As a matter of fact, this drains even resources that could otherwise be used in other activities. By easing the problem of overcrowding, the government is likely to save billions of taxpayers' money that can be used in other activities that are more productive. Among the solutions that could be implemented include cutting sentences for some crimes, releasing prisoners whose behaviors seem to be good and changing and releasing some of the elderly prisoners.
By reducing sentences for certain crimes, it will mean that more prisoners could be released from jail at earlier that they could otherwise have stayed and hence ease the crowding in prison. Some crimes may not be considered to be very serious as compared to others. These are the crimes whose sentence should be reduced. Drug criminals may also have reduced jail sentences. This is a solution that would reduce population in jails, but at the same time it could mean that some of the criminals might leave jail before they are fully reformed (Mahaworker, 2006). To ensure that prisoners don't leave jails before they fully reform or other to reduce the number of non- reformed prisoners leaving jail, the correctional officers should implement exceptions where some prisoners may serve relatively longer sentences based on their progress in regard to their reform. This will mean that if a prisoner is deemed to have not reformed, their term is likely to be increased.
There are prisoners whose behaviors might improve before their jail sentence is complete. Such prisoners may be released earlier, before completing their sentences. This is a solution that will have two fold benefits; first, it will ease congestion in jails. Second, it will encourage prisoners to work hard on their reform progress. Releasing elderly prisoners could also be a viable solution to the problem of overcrowding. In most cases, elderly prisoners are less likely to get back in crimes. The fact that they are also more susceptible to health issues could also be an essential consideration for their release. The prison officers could have a program whereby such people are monitored from outside the prison.
The reason as to why the three solutions have been chosen is due to their ease of implementation and effectiveness in reducing congestion. They are easy to implement. They are not expensive, and at the same time, they are not complicated. They will be effective in that they can significantly reduce the problem of congestion. Some ethical considerations could be related to these problems. First, there is a possibility that non- reformed criminals might be released back to the community. This might mean that they are likely to commit crimes again and hence pose threats to the society. The government should consider prisoners reform progress before releasing them. Additionally, once a prisoner has been released, they should be monitored closely by government agents (Hough, Allen, & Solomon, 2008). Another ethical consideration is that there is a possibility of people engaging more in crimes that have shorter jail sentences.
The fact that they are likely to be in jail for just a short period would instill less fear in them while perpetrating such crimes. In addressing this issue, the government might regulate the intensity of lynching criminals serving shorter sentences for certain crimes.
The solutions are highly viable as they would help to reduce the populace in prisons. They will affect the character's job in that one will be required to use more scrutiny and be more vigilant in observing the behaviors of prisoners. The major challenges of implementing the solution would be to determine which crimes sentence will be reduced and which prisoners should be released and when they should be released.
Conclusion
Overcrowding in prisons is a problem that needs to be addressed collectively by all the parties involved. The government through the judiciary and human rights agencies should intervene to help find solutions for this problem. Wardens can also be helpful in helping find solutions for overcrowding. This is despite the fact that they are also victims of the problem to some extent.