NCJ Number
101286
Journal
Judges' Journal Volume: 25 Issue: 1 Dated: (Winter 1986) Pages: 9-27,49
Editor(s)
L Segan,
E S Hayeck
Date Published
1986
Length
20 pages
Annotation
These five articles, adapted from a 1985 symposium, examine factors in and solutions to overcrowding in the Nation's prisons and jails.
Abstract
Factors contributing to the rise in the prison population include a shift from a rehabilitation to a punishment philosophy of corrections, get-tough attitudes toward crime, growing emphasis on mandatory and determinate sentencing policies, increases in violent and recidivist crime, and an unwillingness to fund new prison construction. A number of solutions to the problem are possible. Prisons should be used only for those offenders who represent a significant threat to public safety. This goal can be achieved by increasing judicial discretion, increased use of probation and other alternatives to incarceration, and classification of offenders on the basis of dangerousness. A less sensationalistic approach by the media and public officials to the crime problem could temper public attitudes toward crime, and a guarantee of swift and certain punishment could restore flagging confidence in the criminal justice system. Private-sector and other innovative financing approaches and privatization represent additional means of reducing overcrowding. Prison industries and inmate educational and vocational programs can decrease the incidence of recidivism while also reducing incarceration costs.