• Background: Goals of system and studies
• Debate:
• Country Comparison:
• Recent Developments: California's prison system

Background

• The goals of various incarceration models include crime deterrence, behavioral reform/correction, removal from society, and the reduction in social costs. Reformation of the penal system has largely focused around defending the civil rights of prisoners including their freedom of expression and movement, the right to medical care, as well as due process guarantees and the right of habeas corpus. The question of parole and release protocols is often debated when it comes to reducing the costs of the prison system, reintegrating ex-prisoners into society, and determining whether or not the inmate has reformed enough to be safe in the public environment.
• Many studies show that the high incarceration rate is not directly a result of increased crime, but rather tougher laws and sentencing. Disparities of race and class also correlate with high incarceration rates as indicated in a 2007 report by The Sentencing Project. It found African Americans incarcerated at nearly six times the rate of whites while Hispanics are incarcerated at nearly double the rate. Immigrants are also disproportionately affected by federal and state prison systems. The imprisonment of undocumented immigrants has recently reached a record of more than 26,000 people as the federal detention system is particularly expanding in Southwest border states. (Source: Democracy Now!)

Debate

Country Comparison

Recent Developments

• California’s expanding prison system, the largest in the nation, exemplifies the controversy over prison reform. Following decades of tough-on-crime policies such as the Three Strikes laws for habitual offenders, the state has increased its incarceration rate without expanding prison facilities or services. As a result, in 2006 a federal court in a class-action lawsuit found an average of 65 preventable inmate deaths a year in the prison medical system. The court ruled this to be cruel and unusual punishment. A 2007 California report cited 552 inmate deaths in the prison system since 2006, many of which resulted from poor medical practices. (Source: The New York Times)
• Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger is enacting a California law aimed at reforming the system will address it by expanding services and inmate cells, while transferring prisoners to out of state locations rather than restructuring its incarceration policies, which mostly imprisons nonviolent offenders. However, both Democratic and Republican legislators in nearly all states shy away from publicly addressing the other major incentives behind prison growth: the growing economy of the corrections industry and the campaign support of prison guards unions.