Prison life is depicted in television shows and movies, like Orange is the New Black and Prison Break; however how much of what we see is true? The United States prison system holds a variety of inmates, from drug offenders to murderers. Race also plays a big role in the prison system. There is large diversity in prisons; however, the majority tends to be black people. In Orange is the New Black, you see inmates very separated by race. The Latin Americans, African Americans, and White people only really look out for those of the same skin color. What you don’t really see in the television shows is the overcrowding situation. The population keeps increasing, causing overcrowding to occur, which results in worse conditions for the inmates. In the United States prison system, there is a mandatory minimum sentencing act. Mandatory minimum sentencing requires that a person must serve a blocked amount of time in prison for the certain crime he or she committed. The sentencing length is preset for each specific crime, not really allowing much wiggle room based on individual cases. The mandatory minimum does not let inmates get out early resulting in overcrowding of the living spaces. The increasing incarceration rate is due to strict sentencing for nonviolent crimes, recidivism, and the targeting of poor neighborhoods, including neighborhoods of different race. 

The population in the United States prison system has seen significant increase. In the last thirty years, the population has inflated nearly 790 percent (Biron). That is a huge amount to increase in that short amount of time and something needs to be done so that it does not continue to increase at such a high rate. Compared to the rest of the world, the United States skyrockets over other countries on prison population. “The United States has less than five percent of the world’s population. But has almost a quarter of the world’s prisoners”, about 2.3 million people behind bars (Liptak). This goes to show that the prison population in the United States is a problem. Countries with much less prisoners seem to manage to run their countries just fine, and our country should consider move to their prison and justice systems. For comparison, per 100,000 people of a population, the United States has approximately 751 people in jail, while England has 151 and Germany has 88 people (Liptak). There is a significant decrease from the United States to England. There needs to be a change in the way prisons are run so that the population will stop increasing at such a high rate and overcrowding isn’t an issue for the inmates who have to live there. 

A large majority of the increasing population is for nonviolent crimes, like drug offenders. Drug offenders make up half of the prison population and a study “from 1998 to 2010 confirmed that time served in prison, particularly for drug offenses, was the largest determinant of the growth in population” (Vigne). These inmates are incarcerated for nonviolent crimes, taking up space and some for long periods of times. There was no violence involved, no harm to anyone else but themselves. This is due to the fact that the government has long been fighting this “war on drugs”. I do agree that the drug problem in America is also an issue, but rather than having them take up space in jail, they should be moved to a rehabilitation center for treatment or serve less sentencing lengths. Save the space for people who committed acts of violence and are a danger to the society. Many of the inmates also suffer from mental illness, “45% of federal prisoners reporting mental health concerns” (Collier). Why put people who suffer from mental illness in a prison and raising the prison population when they should be getting help, just like the drug offenders? In the 1960s, the government deinstitutionalized the large rehab centers and those who were mentally ill went to prison instead (Collier). But mental illness and drugs are not the only problem with who is in prison. When discussing ethnicity, there is a much higher rate of minorities compared to their Caucasian cellmates. One study found that “about 40 percent of those behind bars were black, although African Americans and others of African descent make up only 13.2 percent of the U.S. population” and “Hispanics were represented by twenty percent of the prison population compared with 17.1 percent of the U.S. population.” (Collier). Those numbers are seriously inflated due to the fact that police target minority neighborhoods more often than Caucasian neighborhoods. Alice Goffman, a sociologist and professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, wanted to learn more about what it was like to live in a poor, minority neighborhood. She spent six years living in a poor neighborhood, mainly inhabited by African American and Latino descent, located in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and experienced first hand what it was like to live there. In her Ted Talk, she describes what she saw, including night raids, random body searches, and arrests, many of which were children. She describes these experiences, as “How we’re priming some kids for college- and others for prison”(Goffman). By putting those kids in the system so early in their life and not giving them a chance to prove themselves, we are just making it harder for them to succeed and stay out of prison. 

The prison conditions also make it harder for inmates to stay out of prison. The poor living conditions result in recidivism. Recidivism, in the context of criminal justice, is to relapse back into prison for committing a crime or not following the rules of parole. In 2011, a study was conducted of over 20,000 Italian inmates focused on two main categories of harsh imprisonment. Prison harshness was the first dimension, described as “prison overcrowding and number of deaths in prison” (Drago). The other category was prison isolation, which was described as “the distance from of the chief provincial town from the prison and by the number of volunteers” (Drago). What they found is that there wasn’t significant evidence with the recidivism rate between the two, but there was significant evidence that harsh prison conditions overall led to recidivism of the inmates. This leaves major psychological impacts on the inmates that make it hard for them to integrate back into society once they are released. These environments don’t necessarily make the inmates feel safe, let alone keep them safe. Experts have “observed cases where people enter without symptoms of mental illness and become mentally ill while confined this way” (Collier). The medical services cost money, which “deter them from seeking preventive and routine care” (Collier). Also, education and career training programs are not nearly utilized enough in prison. A report found that, “re-entry programs and other transitions to the community need improving” (Collier). Once prisoners are released, they have strict rules from parole that need to be followed, including having a job and a place to stay. Many people are reluctant to hire previous criminals, and even the places that do hire them aren’t great jobs to pay for a lease, food, and other common bills that people in society pay. Re-entry programs are crucial. Re-entry programs consist of career training as well as education programs that help inmates who did not graduate from high school to achieve their GED, their general education development certification. Most jobs require people to have at least a GED, so it is important for inmates to get theirs to be successful when they are released from prison. If even the slightest amount of time and money was focused more on programs that would help inmates succeed in society, there could be a major population decrease because so many recently released inmates would not be making mistakes to lead them back behind bars. 

While many are trying to fight for prison population decrease, there are people still out there trying to maintain the increasing population. Companies profit off of private prisons and they support people who will make policies in their favor. ALEC, the American Legislative Executive Council, has made policies that will do just that. A study done by Rebecca Cooper and co-authors found that “ALEC has likely contributed to the recent expansion of the prison population using four main tactics: (1) expanding definitions of existing crimes/creating new crimes; (2) enhancing enforcement of existing crimes; (3) amending the trial process in ways that increase the likelihood of incarceration; and (4) lengthening prison sentences” (Cooper, et al). Organizations like ALEC are deliberately trying to make the population increase, so that companies that work with or own the prisons can make more money at the prisoners’ expense.  The Truth in Sentencing Act, which was composed by ALEC, requires a convicted criminal to serve at least eighty-five percent, if not more, of their given sentence length (Cooper, et al). This act keeps prisoners locked up for an extensive time period, while overcrowding is occurring and there is not enough space for incoming prisoners. While many of those prisoners are drug offenders, the overcrowding situation could be fixed by placing those inmates in rehabilitation care, rather than making them serve eighty-five percent of their, usually unfair, sentence. 

In recent news, with the newly elected president, Donald Trump, new policies have been made about the use of private prisons. Companies that are for private prisons supported Trump through the entire election and will now see a positive outcome with him in charge. For example, GEO Group, which is a large for-profit company, donated about $250,000 just for the inaugural activities (Schouten). That is not including all the money they donated for the actual election. Under the Obama administration, the United States was moving away from using private prisons run by companies and having prisons run by the government, but with the newly elect Donald Trump and his immigration policy, private prisons will be put back in use (Schouten). When illegal immigrants are caught, they are placed in private prisons until they can be deported. More prisoners will start to be placed in private prisons, rather than government-run prisons, making the companies very happy since they will be making money at the expense of the inmates.  “Today, for-profit companies are responsible for approximately 6% of state prisoners, 16% of federal prisoners, and, according to one report, nearly half of all immigrants detained by the federal government” (Shapiro). Trump’s new immigration policy greatly affects these statistics and will also provide those companies with huge profit. “Two of the largest companies received over three billion dollars, while their executives received compensation packages worth three million dollars” (Shapiro). While the prisoners suffer from the inflated prison population, as well as their families, executives and people working at these companies see major reward. 

The overpopulation in prisons has become a serious problem, controversy to companies that profit from the increasing prison population. In order to decrease the population and solve this problem, the government and judicial system should get rid of the mandatory minimum sentencing act. The judicial system should run on a case-to-case basis and the judge should determine the length for that individual case based on the severity of the crime and the person who committed the crime. For example, if someone was accused of a certain crime and it was the first offense, they should not get the same sentence for someone who had multiple offenses just because it was the same crime. “Mandatory minimums do not reduce crime but result in lengthy prison terms that contribute to overcrowding”, so the government is not solving anything by having mandatory minimums, but making things worse (Biron). Drug offenders should have reduced sentences or even no sentencing at all because it is more important for them to get help than to be behind bars. They should be moved to rehabilitation centers rather than prison, so that they can get better and there would be more space for prisoners who actually committed a crime involving violence. In 2014, Congress had been working on ways to reduce the prison population. They came up with the Recidivism Reduction and Public Safety Act, which “would provide more drug treatment and job training and would allow inmates who complete such programs to reduce their sentences” (Collier). These programs would also reveal which inmates are willing to work their way back into society and want to get better. Three years later, we still need to push for these kinds of programs to go through because it could really decrease the prison population and better improve the living conditions for inmates who actually need to be there. 

Most of the people behind bars are still United States citizens and even though they broke the law in one way or the other, they still deserve to feel safe and have comfortable and safe conditions. With the increasing population and overcrowding problems, we are not giving the inmates proper conditions to live. Many people are blind to this problem and the government and media needs to shed more light onto it. They deserve a fair chance to prove themselves to society and make right for what they did wrong, and right now, the United States is not giving them that. Sentencing doesn’t even help reduce crime and increase public safety; it just creates worse conditions for inmates. With getting rid of mandatory minimum sentencing and improving their living conditions and programs to help them get better and succeed, we would be giving them what every citizen deserves.
