problem of prison overcrowding as in the case of the United States
The process of convicting and jailing prisoners is costly as it requires a lot of money and time to house the prisoners. Prisons help the inmates to learn essential skills that can help them to live well with the other people of the community without committing crime through the process of rehabilitation. A lot of money is required to ensure that prisons are in good condition, and therefore, if all criminals are sent to jail, a lot of taxpayers’ money will be used in maintaining the prisons. The money could be used in other nation’s development activities. Community corrections are sanctions that are imposed on some criminals in a community setting rather than in prison. Community corrections reduce prison overcrowding problem, and community correction programs allow convicted offenders to go through a correction program that can easily make the offenders to change their behaviors without spending too much money.
Incarceration of all convicted offenders helps to keep the society safe by depriving criminals their freedom, but it is impossible to send all the convicted criminals to jail. Depriving the freedom of convicted offenders is an effective method that helps criminals to change their criminal behavior (Blokland, 2018). Also, incarcerating all the convicted criminals will make society safer by jailing all the convicted offenders. However, incarcerating all the convicted offenders will result in the problem of prison overcrowding as in the case of the United States. Furthermore, jailing all the convicted offenders will make the government spend a lot of money in ensuring that all the prisoners are in good and health condition (Blokland, 2018). Use of community correction method solves the problem of prison overcrowding. Incarceration method is useful in some criminal offenses, while community correction is useful in some criminal corrections to ensure that convicted offenders can change their behavior.
If I were a policymaker, I would recommend incarceration for offenders who violate human rights just from their own will without any mental illness. Young offenders who are involved in rape, murder, and robbery with violence when they are mentally fit to require to be sentenced to keep society safer. Also, if I were a policymaker, I would recommend the community correction method old offenders who commit petty crimes such as fighting because of mental problems (Alarid, 2016). By ethics, old people require improved health care facilities, and therefore incarcerating old people exposes them to health risks. Offenders who commit crimes because of mental illness need to undergo a structured therapeutic process that is possible through community correction method. Jailing mentally ill offender exposes the offender to the risks of severe psychiatric conditions. Incarceration makes the government spend a lot of money in maintaining prisons, and therefore, use of community correction method in some offenses makes the government spend fewer resources in maintaining the prisons (Alarid, 2016). Offenders who have committed several different crimes in the past requires jail imprisonment rather than community correction to make the society safe.
In summary, incarceration of all convicted offenders makes society safe because, through imprisonment, the criminals are deprived of their freedom. However, imprisonment of all convicted offenders requires too much money, and also it results in the problem of prison overcrowding. If I were a policymaker, I would recommend a community correction method for the offenders who commit crimes because of mental illness. Community correction method reduces the amount of money that the government spends while maintaining the prisons and the inmates. The age and crime history of an offender should be considered before determining whether the offender should be jailed or should be involved in community correction procedure.
References
Alarid, L. F. (2016). Community based corrections. Cengage Learning.
Blokland, A. A., & Nagin, D. S. (2016). Estimating the Effects of Imprisonment: Intended and Unintended Consequences