The Issue Of Prison Confinement - 1181 Words

Issues of Jail Confinement Vanessa Williams Western Carolina University April 9, 2015 Introduction According to Siegel Bartollas, corrections is defined as the institutions and methods that society uses to correct, control, and change the behavior of convicted offenders (2014). Although society feels that the best way to take care of offenders is through confinement there are many issues that come in hand while being incarcerated. Depending on how you look at the issues whether they are psychological or physical, the top issues pertaining to issues of jail confinement include Mental Health, Jail Crowding, Violence and Suicides. [ADD ONE MORE SENTENCE AND TRANSITION] Mental Health Psychological factors contribute greatly to†¦show more content†¦Jail Crowding [DEFINE FIRST AND SECOND-GENERATION JAILS] Since 1985, the Jail Populations have nearly tripled with the top 3 States that exceed incarceration rates being Louisiana, Texas and Mississippi. Unfortunately, some jails face overcrowding everyday, and are forced to resort to denying prisoners or finding alternative means to reduce the number of prisoners. It is reported that most of the overcrowding occurs in urban jails (e.g. The Tombs in NYC, the Cook County Jail in Chicago, the Los Angeles County Jail and the Old District of Columbia Jail) (Siegel Bartillo, 2014). The main issue associated with overcrowding is inmate idleness. Inmate idleness is when an inmate spends endless hours in a jail cell doing absolutely nothing that causes an inmate to become restless. In first generation and second-generation jails, idleness is one of the factors contributing to high rates of physical and s exual assaults amongst inmates (Siegel Bartillo, 2014). Violence Any institutional facility housing inmates with crimes varying, the common factor majority of the inmates have anger and resentment, which in turn, turns into violence. The most common types of violence inmates partake in, include but not limited to collective violence and riots and physical assaults. Physical assaults come in various situations like inmate on inmate, inmate on staff or staff on inmate (Siegel