Shown above is a future prison cell design by James Renhard.
Our prisons need change, they need our help. By viewing this page, you will learn some new ideas and suggestions on how we can improve our prisons in the United States.
Prison reforms is one remedy to fixing the justice systems in the United States. One way to do this is to shape the prisoners to be ready to tackle the real world when they are released. This means educating them, showing them life skills, and positive reinforcement. The more knowledge they know and the more educated these inmates are the more they will want to do more with their lives when returning to the normal world. Another big way to make incarceration for inmates better is to create a constructive culture. This means reducing the amount of people who are rearrested. Success is so hard after leaving prison. They have started making non-profits such as Miles of Freedom and Hudson Link to help inmates get back on their feet so they aren't repeat offenders. This is important and a big deal because it keeps more people out of the prison system. At the University of Chicago, School of Social Service Administration Associate Professor Matthew Epperson has been conducting extensive research on the topic of decarceration. He directs the Smart Decarceration Initiative aiming to reduce incarceration rates in ways that are effective, sustainable, and socially acceptable. Epperson and other leaders of the decarceration movement hope to cut the prison and jail population by one million people, about half of the incarcerated population. He does share it will take time to change, he projects in ten years we could all live more sustainably. Epperson claims they will need to develop evidence based policies and practices in order to make change work.
Joe Biden during the 2020 election.
It is stated that if more mental health support in prisons misconduct could be reduced by 22%. That is a huge number that would influence experiences in prisons greatly. Biden is expanding federal funding for mental health and substance abuse in prisons. This is a big deal because tons of people in prison suffer from mental illnesses and with this funding they can get the proper care they need. He is going to double the amount of psychologists, nurses and counselors in prison systems. Biden is making impressive and strong moves to better the life of people who are incarcerated. Another respected move Biden is making is to improve the care of women's needs in incarceration. He says women’s basic health care needs are far different than a mans. Biden’s reform is to allow inmates to get better primary care, see a gynecologist and even better and more frequent care if they are pregnant. Angela Davis advocates for abolition pressing that the US has just started on the path to abolition and advocates know that prisons won't be bulldozed tomorrow. But right now, people will continue to confront the criminal justice system and face incarceration. Abolitionists are focusing on the need for a fundamental shift in thinking, approach, and design of the justice system predicated on restoration and healing. Instead of beginning with punishment, we begin with care. Davis wants people to enlarge their field of vision in order to make big changes and shifts.
Inmate with his children visiting through a parenting program.
An African American child is six times as likely as a white child to have or have had an incarcerated parent. It is found that African Americans are no more likely than whites to use or sell drugs, however more African Americans are arrested for drug crimes. It was found that children of incarcerated parents are more likely to drop out of school, misbehave in school, develop learning disabilities such as ADHD, and possibly suffer from migraines, asthma, high cholesterol, depression, anxiety, PTSD and homelessness. Decriminalization has hopes in improving in our future. The Drug Policy Reform Act includes many provisions including abolishing criminal penalties for drug possession, decarceration, expungement of drug criminal records, anti-discrimination measures, and reinvesting money into communities and drug-user health. It would give the power to categorize and regulate controlled substances, currently held by the Drug Enforcement Administration, to the National Institutes of Health instead.
But a decriminalization framework comes with its own problems. Because it does not legalize drugs, it means that people who use them still have to seek them from unregulated sources. This puts them at continued risk of overdose or other harms from drug contamination or mixing. And because drug selling and trafficking would still be criminalized, there would certainly continue to be arrests and incarceration for those offenses under the DPA bill. People who aren’t arrested would likely still face civil citations and fines.
But a decriminalization framework comes with its own problems. Because it does not legalize drugs, it means that people who use them still have to seek them from unregulated sources. This puts them at continued risk of overdose or other harms from drug contamination or mixing. And because drug selling and trafficking would still be criminalized, there would certainly continue to be arrests and incarceration for those offenses under the DPA bill. People who aren’t arrested would likely still face civil citations and fines.