Indicted: America’s Prison System
Recently, a scathing indictment of prisons in the United States appeared in Trial magazine. To any criminal defense lawyer in the United States who visits jails and prisons with regularity, the issues raised in the article ring all too true. Overcrowding, abuse of prisoners, dilapidated facilities, inadequate medical and mental health care, and disregard for safety are just some of the major issues in our nation’s prisons. These are huge concerns in a country that imprisons more people per capita than any other country in the world.
The incarceration rate in the United States is not only the highest in the world, but also several times higher than the rate of incarceration in our “peer nations.” For example, we have 6 times as many prisoners per capita as Canada, and 12 times as many as Japan. The article points to one interesting cause of the high rate of imprisonment where New Jersey is a leader. According to the article, “[e]very horrible crime sparks a new, more punitive sentencing regime.” New Jersey is the birthplace of “Megan’s Law” (sex offender registration law named after Megan Kanka of Hamilton Township), “Tyler’s Law” (anti-bullying law named after Rutgers student Tyler Clementi), “Kyleigh’s Law” (motor vehicle law named after Kyleigh D’Alessio of Washington Township), and now “Caylee’s Law” (law named after Florida’s Caylee Anthony that would make it a felony not to report a missing child within 24 hours). It seems like every time there is a horrible crime that gets media attention, legislatures blindly act on emotion and pass stricter laws with stricter prison sentences.
The article then points out that a large majority of the problems in America’s prisons are a result of overcrowding. “When you have overcrowding in a given facility or system, it affects everything: the laundry, the food service, medical and mental health care, and the staff’s ability to keep prisoners safe from each other.” New Jersey criminal defense lawyers often see these issues in their daily practice. Clients often complain to their defense lawyers that prisons do not provide them with the necessary nutrition needed to have a healthy diet and to avoid sickness, and that they live in overcrowded conditions where maintaining normal hygiene becomes very difficult.
Finally, the article discusses perhaps the biggest problem in America’s prisons: lack of medical and mental health care. Many people who end up in prison suffer from some form of mental illness. However, since our prisons lack good mental health care facilities and services, those people go untreated and wind up in prison over and over again throughout their lives. Perhaps if better mental health treatment was provided in our prisons and if our prisons refocused their attention from punishment to rehabilitation, other problems, such as overcrowding, would be less of an issue. It is a bitter irony that, as the leaders of the free world, our best solution for solving society’s problems is to imprison as many people as possible.
