Prison: An Ineffective Punishment

Stories of heinous crimes cover the headlines of newspapers everywhere. Horror stories of violent criminals and their deeds add color to late night news stations, radio talk shows, and local gossip. The crime rate escalates, enraging citizens in all areas. Then comes the public relief when a dangerous criminal is apprehended and sentenced to imprisonment. People rejoice that justice has been done and that the criminal has been sentenced to receive exactly what he deserves. But the public does not know that prison is no longer the punishment it was once designed to be. Over the years things have changed. Prison is now more sheltered than ever before as we continue to build on the "needs" of our nation's prisoners and conform to their demands, rewarding them for their crimes rather than giving them the punishment they deserve. Now, as a result, we are faced with the consequences of our actions. As prisons overflow with prisoners and the crime rate continues to escalate, we must once again embrace the concept of prison as punishment.

The framers of the Constitution of the United States of America and the Bill of Rights laid down a set of laws designed to protect and establish order. Unfortunately, we the people have, over the years, come to form our own understanding of the rights our forefathers gave us to the point that the use of the litigant becomes far more significant than the meaning or intent of the old phrasemakers. In this way, we are enabling the criminals and crooks of the nation to take advantage of their rights and thus create a legal system that creates chaos and disdains order.

In the late 1960's and early 1970's a prisoners' rights movement took hold, average time became shorter and rehabilitation through psychotherapy and education was emphasized. Prisoners gained privileges and a better environment in which to live. They were recognized by the public as human beings with needs and rights. Thus prison began its ascent from the punishment for which it had been designed into a better place, treating prisoners much like the ordinary, law-abiding citizens of the outside world.

Prison conditions have drastically continued to improve. In many states, federal judges order the states to provide air conditioning, televisions, basketball courts, weight rooms, decks of cards, frisbees, and workshops . It is these attempts to better prisoners' conditions which take away from the concept of prison as punishment. As a result, prisoners lose their fear of the system and gain a sense of security and comfort. Society must be able to protect itself from offenders and to impose some cost on criminal acts. But the provision of so many luxuries does just the opposite. Instead of imposing a cost on criminal acts, society is in a sense paying criminals for them.

The legal system is now so sensitive to the "needs" of inmates that it has allowed prisoners to almost control the courts, as they fight to remedy "inhumane" treatment in prisons. In fact, a large majority of lawsuits attacking allegedly unconstitutional prison practices are brought by state prisoners. Because the interpretation of the Constitution has become nearly all-encompassing, stretching to cover even the most absurd accusations and because of the leniency of the judicial system, prisoners are now taking advantage of their rights. Under Section 1983 of the Civil Rights Act of 1871,prisoners can challenge violations of their First Amendment freedoms of speech, religion, and association, or, for that matter, unconstitutional prison policies that deny or restrict their right of access to the courts. Therefor, the prisoners of the nation take advantage of the courts, costing the states hundreds of millions of dollars in legal fees and in the costs of complying with the courts' orders. The cost and number of such frivolous lawsuits is overwhelming. By providing access to the courts, prisoners try at all costs to fight against and mock the legal system.

Meanwhile, outside the locked doors of the prisons, rates of return to crime continue to escalate. Because we have allowed our nation's prisons to become the safe, comfortable institutions that they are, it seems that for numerous individuals with low levels of skill and education, these returns now appear to exceed any available in the workplace. In cases such as these, people actually commit crimes with the intention of being imprisoned in order to rise above their current lifestyle. This fact alone proves that our prison system is indeed not the punishment or deterrent it was once designed to be, but that it has become, in many ways, the easy way out.

With the problem of the escalating crime rate resulting partly from the rising rates of return to crime, comes the controversial issue of prison overcrowding. In turn, prison overcrowding leads to more "cruel and unusual punishment" lawsuits, and the government must decide what to do with all of these criminals. Here lies the controversy: Do we build more prisons, and if so, where do we get the money? Or, do we release violent criminals on what seems to be good behavior? Unfortunately, these answers are not easy.

The alternative of building more prisons has its own costs. Despite stepped-up jail construction, it is unlikely that we can simply build our way out of the overcrowding crisis. Besides, the cost of prison construction, there is the added cost of keeping a criminal . Thus, more money comes out of taxpayers' pockets to finance more homes for more criminals.

On the other hand, releasing criminals does not seem to be a logical idea. Given the statistically high rate of return to crime, releasing these criminals serves only to delay the overcrowding process. In such a case, crimes may be repeated, endangering the welfare of others, and the offender would end up exactly where he started. This, then, also proves to be an unacceptable solution to the overcrowding problem.

In reality, there is only one viable solution to such a problem. We must stand back and take time to analyze the things that we have done wrong and realize that our forefathers designed the prison system as a way to punish the wrong-doers of society, not as a way to simply remove them from society. With this realization, we can begin to break down the high standards of prison life and make it what it was designed to be: punishment.

In conclusion, we, the people of the United States of America, have created our own problem. By allowing our judicial system to conform to the so-called needs of our inmates and by providing for them the luxuries they feel they deserve, we have also taken away the purpose of imprisonment. Our forefathers designed the concept of imprisonment not to keep the law-breakers off the streets, but to keep people from breaking the law. Unfortunately, we have overlooked that basic concept and now we must face continuously increasing crime rates or return to the original concept as proposed by the founding fathers of prison as punishment.