Incarceration and its alternatives.
A brief case study (a general overview) on incarceration. worldwide statistics and demographics.
GLOBAL INCREASE IN PRISON POPULATION : A CRISIS
The global prison population has been steadily increasing, with close to 11 million people behind bars in either pre-trial detention or imprisonment around the world. Prison overcrowding has long been a persistent challenge for many Member States, affecting a solid majority of countries worldwide.
One of the main contributing factors behind overcrowding in places of deprivation of liberty is the excessive use of both pre-trial detention and imprisonment around the world. Despite the recognition that imprisonment alone is insufficient to meet the objectives of criminal sanctions, and the existence of detailed guidance from relevant international law and standards that imprisonment should be considered a last resort, many countries rely heavily on imprisonment as the default, or the only response to crime.
● ALTERNATIVES TO IMPRISONMENT :
The alternatives to imprisonment are types of punishment or treatment other than time in prison that can be given to a person who is convicted of committing a crime. Some of these are also known as alternative sanctions. Alternatives can take the form of fines, restorative justice, transformative justice or no punishment at all. Capital punishment, corporal punishment and electronic monitoring are also alternatives to imprisonment .
WHY CAPITAL PUNISHMENT, CORPORAL PUNISHMENTS , etc. ARE NOT SUPPORTED BY MODERN PRISON REFORM MOVEMENTS?
● Capital punishment, corporal punishment and electronic monitoring are also alternatives to imprisonment, but are not promoted by modern prison reform movements for decarceration due to them being carceral in nature.
● Reformers generally seek to reduce prison populations and make increased use of alternatives with a focus on rehabilitation. The main arguments for this are that these responses reduce the chance of reoffending, reduce cost burdens on the state and reduce prison overcrowding.
● THE UNITED STATES : THE WORLD'S LEADER IN INCARCERATION
Intro - There are 2 million people in the nation’s prisons and jails—a 500% increase over the last 40 years. Changes in sentencing law and policy, not changes in crime rates, explain most of this increase. These trends have resulted in prison overcrowding and fiscal burdens on states to accommodate a rapidly expanding penal system, despite increasing evidence that large-scale incarceration is not an effective means of achieving public safety.
● How did this happen?
Sentencing policies of the War on Drugs era resulted in dramatic growth in incarceration for drug offenses. Since its official beginning in the 1980s, the number of Americans incarcerated for drug offenses has skyrocketed from 40,900 in 1980 to 430,926 in 2019. Furthermore, harsh sentencing laws such as mandatory minimums keep many people convicted of drug offenses in prison for longer periods of time: in 1986, people released after serving time for a federal drug offense had spent an average of 22 months in prison. By 2004, people convicted of federal drug offenses were expected to serve almost three times that length: 62 months in prison.
● HUMAN RIGHTS ABUSE AGAINST PRISONERS —
IN VENEZUELA:
Unchecked outbursts of prison violence frequently violate prisoners' right to life. Last August, at least twenty-nine prisoners were killed in a remote jungle facility in Venezuela, leading the country's Justice Ministry, charged with prison administration, to promise reforms, and its Public Ministry to conduct an extensive investigation of the incident's causes .
IN TAJIKISTAN:
The Tajikistan government, earlier in the year, chose to cover up an even bloodier prison massacre. Although information about the events is scarce, reports indicate that in mid-April the Tajik security forces stormed a prison in the northern city of Khujand, killing over a hundred prisoners. Earlier that week, inmates had rioted and taken several guards hostage to protest life-threatening detention conditions. Ignoring Human Rights Watch's request for information and its calls for a thorough and impartial investigation of the incident, the Tajik government has apparently taken no action to punish those responsible for the deaths.
IN MOROCCO:
In Morocco's Oukacha prison, twenty-two prisoners were burned alive in September 1997; they had been crammed together in a cell reportedly built to hold eight. The cause of the fire was not announced, but the country's Justice Ministry acknowledged that overcrowding might have played a role in the deaths.
● Health issues in the prisons
IN RUSSIA :
in the prisons of the former Soviet Union, where tuberculosis continues its comeback. Russia's prosecutor general announced in March 1997 that about 2,000 inmates had died of tuberculosis in the previous year.
-Summary on the prison abuse -
Besides corruption, physical abuse by guards is a chronic problem. Some countries continue to permit corporal punishment and the routine use of leg irons, fetters, shackles, and chains. The heavy bar fetters used in Pakistani prisons, for example, turn simple movements such as walking into a painful ordeal. In many prison systems, unwarranted beatings are so common as to be an integral part of prison life. Women prisoners are particularly vulnerable to custodial sexual abuse. In the aftermath of prison riots or escapes, physical abuse is even more predictable, and typically much more severe.
● THE TRUTH BEHIND THE US PRISON SYSTEM -
It's no secret that prisons are overcrowded, but a little-known reason for this is that there are countless inmates stuck there because they can't make bail. NPR reported that "more than a half-million inmates sitting in American jails" were in that situation in 2010. Sometimes, they owe less than $100. When you have no money to begin with, any amount is a burden. Also, many of these people were arrested for nonviolent crimes, such as Leslie Chew who stole four blankets from a store to stay warm in the car he was sleeping in. On the dime of taxpayers, he sat in jail for more than 185 days awaiting trial. Unfortunately, like many things in life, having access to money is the only ticket out. With prisoners, bail is only the beginning. There are numerous legal fees associated with getting arrested, and those who can afford the best have a significantly better chance at winning their case .
●RACISM IN THE US PRISON SYSTEM :
Mass incarceration has not touched all communities equally
The racial impact of mass incarceration
Black men are six times as likely to be incarcerated as white men and Latinos are 2.5 times as likely. For Black men in their thirties, about 1 in every 12 is in prison or jail on any given day.
Lifetime Likelihood of Imprisonment for U.S. Residents Born in 2001
Case study by: Zeba Ahmed
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