Overpopulation In Prisons

2 Pages 431 Words

Overpopulation in Prisons


According to Allen J. Beck, Ph.D an estimated 1,585,400 persons were incarcerated in the United States in 1995 and that since 1985 the total number of inmates in the State and Federal prisons has grown 8.3 percent annually. (Beck, 1) The prisons in the United States are seeing about 45,000 new inmates each year. Greg Botonis, writer for the Los Angeles Daily News, says “Since the first year [California State Prison] opened, more than 4,000 inmates have been assigned to the prison designed for 2,200, and the population explosion has been especially great since spring.” (Botonis, 1) Those are pretty big numbers. From 1994 to 1995 Iowa’s prison population alone grew 8.6 percent. How can the government afford to keep putting this many people in prison? That’s right, the taxpayers are paying for it. Overpopulation in prisons impacts negatively on staff morale and on the services rendered, it also is the cause for abnormally high maintenance costs of prison facilities.
Why are we having problems with crowding in our prisons? The overpopulation problems in the prisons are due to mandatory minimum sentencing laws which was brought out by the anti-drug abuse act of 1986. This law states that judges are required to use minimum sentences on offenders based on the type and quantity of the drug involved. Last year over half a million Americans were arrested for marijuana offenses and now most of them are in our prisons.
Overpopulation in prisons has lead to the need for new prisons to be built. Which means even more money is needed from the taxpayers. Just for one inmate to stay in a federal prison for one month it costs about $1,910. The cost for building a new prison facility can vary from fifteen to sixty million dollars. The taxpayers are giving prisoners pretty much a free ride. Prisoners have it better than most American citizens. These prisoners get to have all of their utilities ...