The Criminal Justice System

The "deviance" chapter in our textbook touches on the issue of crime reduction strategies, and asks the question "Are Prisons the Answer?" Before reading the section, I thought the answer to the crime-reduction debate was easy: toughen the laws, put more offenders behind bars, for longer amounts of time, and make it harder for them to get out early.

I did not realize that America's prison system was so overcrowded, with more than 2.2 million people behind bars; so overcrowded in fact "that the average convict serves only a third of his sentence" (194). And considering the large amount of money it costs to house a prisoner per year (over $25,000) its nearly impossible to put more people behind bars for longer. Then there is the fact that prison "hardens" criminals. By forcing them to live in such a brutal environment, they actually can become more dangerous to society. Another issue surfaces when repeat offenders come in and out of the prison system over and over again; they simply become "immune" to the effects the prison environment has on their behavior, and rehabilitation is not probable.

So what do we do about this? Unfortunately, I do not have a specific answer. I agree with Robert Gangi, quoted from our text: "building more prisons to address crime is is like building more graveyards to address a fatal disease" (195). One of the fundamental issues that needs attention is the subject of poverty in our country. The cycle of impoverishment and criminal activity must be interrupted somehow in order to decrease the amount of crime in our country. Following the Labeling Theory, when these people are labeled "poor" they seem to almost follow their own self-fulfilling prophecy. They aren't provided the same opportunities for advancement as middle and upper-class citizens, which in turn leads many to believe that there is no other way of life than hardship, struggle, and turning to otherwise "deviant" behaviors. It seems the best way to prevent these behaviors is to assist the impoverished population of this country and provide more opportunities, so that criminal activity never becomes an option.

Works Cited

Giddens, Anthony et al. Introduction to Sociology. 7th Edition. New York: W.W. Norton &
Company, Inc., 2009. Print.