Essay on "How to Reform the Prisons"

Essay 15 pages (5566 words) Sources: 1+ Style: APA

[EXCERPT] . . . .

Policy-making is most definitely another part of the prison puzzle. One iteration and example of that would be the Medicaid policies that are applied when it comes to state prisons within the broader United States prison system. This precise subject was explored by Rosen et al. in a 2014 journal article. Indeed, health care is a major concern when speaking of prison populations and Medicaid in particular is a common source of health care coverage for prisoners that are incarcerated. Rosen and his cohorts did a survey of the state prison system (SPS) policies affecting overall Medicaid enrollment for prisoners that were doing time. Overall, all but eight of the state prison systems in the United States participated in the survey. In general, nine of the state prison systems were suspended in terms of Medicaid benefits. This represents just over a fifth of the state prison systems in question. Another twenty-eight of the prisons had Medicaid in terminated status. This was about two thirds of the prison sample. Even with those two groups, about two thirds of the prisons screened prisoners for Medicaid eligibility. Many states actively advocated, at least at the time. For Medicaid enrollment upon release from prison but several did not do so. Given all of this, many have advocated an expansion of Medicaid so as to reach groups of people that are not served or under-served and prisoners would certainly meet this definition in more than one way. This is especially important because a lot of prisoners spend a good amount of years in jail. For example, time in a single prison averages about five years and ranged from two to ten years. Time in the current prison system was usually about thirteen years and ranged from six to nineteen years. Time in any prison system was about fourteen years on average and ranged from nine to twenty years (Rosen, Dumont, Cislo, Brockmann, Traver & Rich, 2014).

As partially noted earlier in this report, it can be extremely difficult for felons to reintegrate into society. The main, but certainly not the only, reason for this is that felons often have a hard time finding a job. When many employers see felon status when it comes to an employee, that alone often precludes that applicant from further consideration. It has gotten to the point where equal employment agencies and groups like the EEOC have weighed in and said that it is very much like other forms of discrimination and thus should be regulated or perhaps even banned. However, that is about has hard a pill to swallow as the assertion that alcoholism is a disease (and thus worthy of ADA protections) like multiple sclerosis is a disease. The commonality between alcoholism and felony status is that some to most of the situation is based on voluntary behavior. Indeed, alcoholics get hooked because they abuse alcohol. However, it gets to the point where they are hopelessly hooked on alcohol and they are trying to find a way out of their addiction. The addiction and its aftermath often has a dire effect on their employment status and other facets of day-to-day life. Felon status is not entirely different. If someone commits a felony, is charged, convicted and serves time, they are in a bad situation from a life standpoint even if they get their head together while in prison. Even if they are on the straight and narrow after getting out of prison, their felony record is very much going to affect their ability to get and/or keep a job. As noted before, pity about these sorts of situations is less than forthcoming from a lot of people as they deem felons and addicts to be reaping what they sow. However, this cannot be the best and final answer from a societal standpoint because these people still have to live and survive and they really cannot do so if society treats them like lepers and second-class citizens. Even if there is not a real and firm comparison between discrimination based on race or gender as compared to discrimination based on drug use or felon status, there are people in the latter two groups that are well-intentioned and that are ready to get their life straight but they are not really getting an honest chance to do so. While prevention would be much better as an overall strategy, something must be done with the people that have gone astray but want to redeem themselves (Saxonhouse, 2004).

Another dimensions to the United States prison system that should be addressed are repeat offenders and how they tend to be handled. Indeed, there are many people that will have one or two scrapes with the law and they will then keep their nose clean thereafter. However, the opposite end of that spectrum are the people that offend over and over. Many jurisdictions and their constituents have gotten fed up with these sorts of criminals and it has led to the introduction of habitual offender laws. The idea behind such laws is that people that offend and offend again need to receive advanced sentencing so as to keep them off the streets longer and drive home the point, hopefully, that their continued flouting of the law will not be tolerated. One example of this in action was a man from Baton Rouge, Louisiana that had been arrested at least eighteen times for a number of offenses, four of which were felonies. The jurisdiction in question had had enough and sentenced him to sixty years in jail. This was levied in spite of the fact that other pending charges including racketeering, conspiracy and illegal possession of a firearm charges were all dropped. If the man serves the entire sentence, he will surely die in prison has he was forty-two years old at the time of the sentence (Associated Press, 2015). Even if the idea of habitual offending sentencing sounds good in theory (and it does to many people), there are concerns that race and ethnicity are playing entirely too high a role when it comes to who gets slapped with such harsh sentencing and who does not. One study on the subject, as authored by Crow and Johnson, found that Florida was disproportionately levying habitual offender sentences against ethnic and racial minorities as compared to white people, just as one example (Crow & Johnson, 2008).

One trend that is concerning to many people is the fact that many prisons are becoming privatized in nature. Rather than public agencies having complete, command, control and involvement in all prison operations, many prisons are actually private operated with the permission and oversight of the state, not unlike when a road or bridge is requested by a city but is actually built by a private contractor. These public/private partnerships seem to be paying dividends in some ways such as saving money but the people behind these private prisons have sometimes met a sharp amount of scrutiny from the public in general and advocacy groups in particular. However, these public/private partnerships are starting to evolve a little bit. One example is the emergence of social impact bonds that exist between the public agencies and the private companies (Baliga, 2013).

The gist is that there is an agreed upon price for these arrangements but at least some of the payments are contingent on the meeting of certain outcomes and goals. These goals and desired outcomes are based on social and cultural trends such as high homelessness and overall recidivism rates. In other words, the privately-run prisons have a high incentive to actually be careful about how they house and deal with prisoners rather than just packing them high and tight and resorting to simply warehousing them. There has indeed been a modicum of success when it comes to SIB's around the country and this has spurred a lot of new pilot programs in areas where the SIB's are not already in place. An SIB arrangement and/or privatization in general may not be the best answer in a lot of cases but it would seem to work really well in many other situations so long as everyone involved is held accountable and there are specific yet reasonable strings attached to reaping the most of the money that can be made from the arrangement (Baliga, 2013).

Finally, we come to a rather outlying theory but one that should actually be considered. This would be the abolition and revamp of the United States prison system as we currently know it. Allegra McCleod and others have asserted that the current prison system is entirely too bastardized and problem-ridden to really accomplish what is intended. One reason is that non-violent offenders often devolve and degenerate when they are in prison as opposed to really learning anything or otherwise improving once they get outside. Beyond that, they often get housed with people that are institutionalized and/or are otherwise violent and this only leads to bad things for everyone involved. There is the assertion that… READ MORE

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