Criminal Justice System

After reading chapter 7, I have chosen to discuss the topic of crime reducing strategies.  I agree with Robert Gangi, the director of the Correctional Association of New York, that "building more prisons to address crime is like building more graveyards to address a fatal disease".  As the book mentions, prisons are so full of criminals, that their sentence is likely to be cut significantly.  The harsh conditions of jail, actually has more damaging affects to the criminal.  It makes them act out worse once they leave jail, then they were before they entered.  After reading about the control theory, maybe acts of crime are being committed because these criminals know that their sentence will not be long and they will have a chance to get out early due to good behavior.  I'm not saying that I agree with the death penalty, or want criminals to die because they have killed, but I think if it were the answer to everyone who has committed murder, than murder rates could possibly decrease.  If the punishments were more harsh and severe, and more clear cut as oppose to situational, than maybe crime would decrease.  For crimes where murder or rape has not been committed, like a crime relating to drugs, I do not feel jail is the answer.  I think in this situation there needs to be another way to handle the person involved.  Jail will not fix the person's problem, it just prevents the problem from happening while they are there.  I think there needs to be some sort of place for these people to go to get help in understanding themselves and why they were doing what they were doing.  They need to be guided in the right direction under close supervision.  They could possibly receive an education and create a program for these people to obtain experience in a work environment.  After they have completed their obstacles, I feel they should be given a second chance to better themselves.  Employers should recognize completion of such program as they would someone without a criminal record and with work related experience.  The experiment performed by Devah Pager, which revealed that white criminals' chances of becoming hired were cut in half and black criminals' chances of becoming hired were cut two thirds, shows that society isn't giving these people much of a chance.  If there was a program for these people to complete that is heavily supervised, then they could make progress in becoming a better person.  Releasing someone from jail and them trying to find a job is not going to create an easy situation for these people to change their lives.

While I do not feel jail is an answer, just a holding period, I do think that policing is important.  Roughly 1/5 of all serious crimes result in an arrest.  Criminals will conduct bad behavior if they don't feel they will be caught.  Such people usually are very clever, and know the areas they are going to strike ahead of time to decrease the likelihood they will get caught.  Currently in New Jersey, they have experienced a budget cut and laid off a large portion of their police staff.  There are sections in New Jersey that are very bad, and I think that with there not being as many police roaming the streets, that crime will just increase.