39 percent of prisons in the United States were at or over full capacity last year. This number is continuously growing. How is it a problem, one might ask? Why should we care? How can we fix it? There are a variety of answers to these questions. The cost, work environment and location of prisons all play a huge role. Within the past few decades, prisons all over the United States have become overcrowded, which is a problem because we have no place to store criminals.
The federal prison system has been unable to keep pace with the stream of inmates flooding its facilities. If the government starts cramming more and more people into a confined space, they are going to create more tensions and problems, which will put the prison workers in harm's way. Another problem with overcrowding prisons is the fact that America has no room to store new criminals. Crowded cells and the loss of privacy increase the odds that inmates will lash out, threatening the guards that are keeping watch. Overcrowded prisons are extremely harmful to workers.
Due to overcrowding, many criminals who are non-violent are being released early to make space, which results in many of them being unafraid to commit yet another crime, putting them right back in the same situation they were in before. This might seem like a good thing, but it is not because these prisoners are just returning at a later date. This is just harming the public due to these criminals being released, only to commit crimes again. The prison system spends almost 11 billion dollars per year, and because of overcrowding, many prisoners are sent to other states, increasing many costs such as transportation. Much of our tax money is sent to these prisons. With this being said, what are the cost effective ways that can be put into effect to solve this problem of prison overcrowding?
Over 50 percent of inmates currently in federal prison are there for drug offenses. The second-largest category, immigration-related crimes, accounts for 10.6 percent of inmates. Out of the 50 percent of drug-related crimes, 27 percent are marijuana-related sentences. In the entire United States, if marijuana were legalized, which is inexpensive to put into effect, the United States would clear a lot of prison room. When it comes to illegal immigrants who are in the United States, sending them back to their home country to serve a sentence would clear up even more space.
The prisons in the United States have been getting more and more overcrowded as the years progress. It is a known problem and has been proven to be for a while now. The average American should be concerned with this because it puts workers in danger and puts America’s money to waste. Some solutions to this are more parole, the legalization of recreational marijuana and alteration of brain waves, also known as deep brain simulation. With some time and action, the prisons in the United States will not be overcrowded in the future.
