Week 5 Assignment Criminals and Sentencing

Week 5 Assignment Criminals and Sentencing

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Sentencing Prisons today are working at their maximum potential. They constantly running out of room to house all the inmates within each facility. Federal, State, and County facility numbers are exceeded. Instead of housing inmates efficiently there are problems with crowding. To make up for the crowding there are larger facilities being built. There are also private prisons in use now. Private prison are run by private owners which the system pays for. Instead of building a new facility the prison system pays private facilities for their facilities.

This means that their employees and everything that goes with it is being financed. Private prisons have their own problems though. Instead of having highly trained correction officers like they have high turnovers which increase potential for hazards.

Hazards they encounter may be riots or inmates not being treated fairly and the list goes on. Having a officer that is not fully trained to be a corrections officer is risky. Untrained officers are risking not only their safety but those around them. In the blink of an eye something could go wrong at any moment. It is the officers job to make sure that they are not only trained to safeguard themselves, but also any inmates or officers around them. Having one inmate out of hand can lead to numerous inmates out of hand. In any facility this is bad news.

Overcrowding in a State, Federal, or County facility is still apparent. State and County facility numbers are dropping in the past few years, but Federal prison numbers have been rising (Seiter, 2011, p.157). Reason behind the number fluctuations may be linked to the fact that more offenders are now being prosecuted on the federal level instead of State and County levels (Seiter, 2011, p.157). Crowding in all three of these types of facilities pose the same problems as a private prison. Riots, and safety are still issues at all three of these levels.

Criminals create situations everyday that the rest of the world must adapt to their behavior. Some of their behaviors are not quite as bad as others but it is still punishable. Our government and communities have set standards for our judicial system to punish these criminals. Methods to punishment may include: deterrence, incapacitation, rehabilitation, and retribution. Each one of these methods create a personalized way for the criminal to adapt to social norms. Deterrence is a method law makers use to help keep the criminal from making the same mistakes again.

There are two different types of deterrence methods. Specific deterrence aims to keep the offender from being a repeat offender (Schmalleger, 2011, p.374). By making the punishment so bad the offender doesn’t want to commit the same crime again deterrence paves a new pathway for the offender (Seiter, 2011, p.30). Punishment can often lead a criminal to think about the nature of their actions before they commit…………….

Week 5 Assignment Criminals and Sentencing