All prisons have four universal purposes; to chastise criminals, to exclude those criminals from society, and to prevent the same criminals from committing crimes in the future. Deterrence of crime is only possible through an effective prison which not only incarcerates an individual, but is able to rehabilitate their conditions. For decades, however, many prisons in the United States are unsuccessful in doing so. Conditions in jails have consistently worsened over the last fifty years, and the effects show through insufficient sanitation, lack of control of inmates, and increased violence in prisons. All of these conditions are results of prison overcrowding.
Overcrowding can be a result of rising or fluctuating crime rates in particular cities. Despite Trump claiming that the nations crime rate was, “the highest it’s been…in 45-47 years,” it isn’t quite true. The crime rate in the nation, although varying between cities, has been on a fairly steady decline since the nineties. Despite this decline, since 2000, the number of inmates in the United States rose by almost 20%. Because of our ineffective enforcement system, jails are bursting with individuals charged with crime who are yet to go through trial. From 2000 to 2014, the number of individuals imprisoned without being convicted of a crime rose by a significant 17%. The Vera Institute for Justice conducted a study which noticed that judges are hesitant to release individuals charged with non-violent crimes, a practice that was more common in the past. Instead, judges tend to commonly set bail amounts that many perpetrators are unable to pay. These people are given no choice but to wait their time in jail.
Jail overcrowding is a severe problem that needs to be tackled as soon as possible. Other than the obvious annoyances that overcrowding can bring, it can also cause serious physical and psychological harm to both inmates and prison guards. Wardens saw spikes in inmate violence when prisons became congested. David Maurer, the Government Accountability Office Director of Homeland Security and Justice, commented on prison overcrowding in 2012 and how it encourages violence. “If you start cramming more and more people into a confined space, you’re going to create more tension and problems. It creates the possibility that someone’s going to snap and have a violent incident.” On top of that, with more and more inmates being pushed into prisons, the time given to inmates for meals, outdoor recreation, and lounging are much more limited and constrained. Because of overcrowding, services available to prisoners for self-help and education are limited as well. And sometimes, multiple inmates are put into cells originally made for one. Although these may sound like annoyances rather than serious concerns, they can add up, especially in an environment as hostile as a prison. Despite the inmate population increase, the average number of guards in each prison housing unit stayed the same, and in some cases, due to budget cuts, decreased. The lower guard-to-inmate ratio makes it extremely difficult to monitor entire groups.
Furthermore, since there are so many people living in cells, it’s hard to maintain jails. Just this year, the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California brought attention to Orange County jails. The union claimed that because of the harsh treatment of prisoners and unhealthy living conditions, the Orange County jails were violating constitution regulations. Such close-knit inmates can lead to violence, as mentioned before, but the unsanitary conditions lead to illnesses. These illnesses and diseases spread very easily because of the lack of maintenance in jails. This issue has been steadily getting worse as budgets are being cut to jails in many states. The most important abstract to take from these statistics is the fact that the poor conditions of jails are hindering their ability to rehabilitate and deter prisoners from committing crime upon release. Poor conditions in prisons have an obvious dehumanizing effect on prisoners that can agitate them or make them bitter, and it can even worsen their hostile views on society. The violence in prisons worsen the chances that a prisoner will be able to escape crime once the inmate is released and when he/she has to re-assimilate into society.
As overcrowding and deteriorating jails become a crisis level issue, jail administrators are looking for new methods to provide effective, safe, and humane jails. Some jails across the country are utilizing modern design and psychology in order to create the optimal jail, these are called new generation jails. In traditional cells, correctional officers can only see into one cell or one section at a time. If attention is needed in one spot, the majority of the inmates are left unsupervised. The traditional jail system not only neglects the needs of prisoners, but can provide an unsafe environment considering that both prisoners and guards are left vulnerable. Some even claim that this kind of supervision leads to a general disconnect between the officers and inmates. New generation jails, however, are built in a way that there are as less view obstructions as possible, which allows for continuous supervision. These jails claim to be the solve to many of the inevitable complications in traditional jails.
There are two types of new generation jails; indirect supervision jails and direct supervision jails. This refers to the design of the jail itself and how each officer is assigned to patrol over a group of inmates. In a direct supervision jail, inmates are put into a “circles” of cells surrounding a lounging area, commonly referred to as a “pod.” The pod usually contains tables and chairs and sometimes recreational devices such as televisions and games. Correctional officers are supposed to be stationed in the pods themselves, surrounded by the multiple cells. With this design, the officer has constant view of the cells, and it tackles one of the biggest problems in traditional jails; inmate violence. Because the officer has a much more consistent view of all the inmates he is assigned to, he can mitigate issues before they start, and if an issue does arise, the officer can break it up quickly. Furthermore, psychologists say this system can make an officer more relatable to the inmates since they are living in the same area (the pod) and getting a little more 1:1 supervision. The correctional officers basically “live” with their inmates, which provides a more positive outlook from the inmate’s perspective.
In contrast, indirect supervision is architecturally similar, however, in this setup, the officer is stationed inside a separate, secured room. If the need to speak arises, the officer will use speakers and microphones to listen through to the other side. The officer will usually have a radio system in order to communicate with central control in the case of trouble. Some say that this more isolated and separated approach leads to deter future crimes, its harsher and lasting on the inmate. One of the issues with the traditional jail is that it doesn’t help to deter criminals from committing offenses upon release. The disconnect from society and the dehumanization of separation made the inmates develop a distaste and negative attitude towards society, which can lead to further instances of crime, and definitely doesn’t help an inmates conflict.
Previously, with inmates being swarmed into cells and in one living area, it would be difficult to maintain and clean up. This led to harmful living situations as well as unsanitary conditions for many inmates. The new generation indirectly alleviates this issue as well. Now, with there being a pod in the center, the individual cells are much easier to clean and maintain, and the communal areas are majorly open spaces. Better sanitary conditions will also lead to less sickness. The individual compartments of the jail will also keep illnesses from spreading as quickly as they did in the traditional system. Less people crammed together means less spreading of bacteria and germs.
Direct supervision also proved to maintain discipline. Under indirect supervision, officers are disconnected from the pods, the area in which the inmates are kept. Instead of guarding over them, the inmates felt as though the officers were merely visiting when they came into the pods. The inmates had established a sense of dominance of the pod, they no longer saw it as the governments property. This led to prisoners feeling as though they didn’t need to heed the orders of the correctional officers. Disregard for the officers led to loss of authority, and thus, an opening for violence. In indirect supervision, the guards are constantly showing dominance by living in the pods with the prisoners. It was obvious that the prisoners were the visitors, as it should be. This, paired with better supervision of each prisoner provider a safer work environment for staff and guards, as well as kept gang violence at bay. Since the inmates were divided by the correctional officers, cliques and gangs were unable to form. Because of the officers patrolling in the same areas that the inmates were,
Our country prides itself on our judiciary system; claiming fairness and balance for all. Unfortunately, considering the conditions of some of our nations prisons, the punishments are pointing towards being cruel and unusual. Different measurements need to be taken in order to solve these issues, more needs to be done than merely increase budgets to create more prisons. Traditional prisons are not only inmates’ concern, crime deterrence is a concern of any citizen. The new generation prisons tackle on issues of deterrence ineffectiveness, and overall, more effective prisons across the nation. The unfortunate thing is, most people don’t acknowledge that the overcrowding issue starts with the judges and court decisions. The rate of individuals who go to jail without committing a crime rose by over 17 percent from 2000 to 2004. This is why our jails are still overcrowded in a time when crime is at a steady low. Still, overcrowding has been a problem in many prisons around the world for many decades. It’s time to make room for new approaches to rehabilitate our inmates.