Essay on Jail population
Nowadays, there can be observed rapid growth of the jail population. There are many factors that influence the increase of jail population in modern days. The following research paper gives a brief insight into the situation around jail population and all the corresponding issues related to this matter. The research provides an analysis of what kind of people usually get imprisoned offering the latest data on this matter. The following research observes several categories of the jail population that are more likely to be seen incarcerated. It also provides information on the management issues, challenges and complications related to the question under discussion.
The Insight into the Jail Population
Jails are known to be complex structures that experience rapid population growth. Jails hold people the cases of whom have not been adjudicated yet and the convicted people as well. Some of the convicted people may be sentenced to serve some term in a jail, while others are still awaiting the completion of their reports. There are various kinds of offences that distinguish the differences among people who serve their jail term. Thus, some of them may be convicted of a misdemeanor, while others may be convicted of some sort of felony. There are various reasons for people to get imprisoned depending on the peculiarities of the crimes committed. However, it needs to be mentioned that average jail stays for some sort of trivial offenses are measured in a short period of time causing quick jail population turnover (Cunniff 5). The peculiarities of convicts and their crimes will be discussed below.
Management Issues
A knowledge base explaining the peculiarities of a jail population and its growth or decrease is a prerequisite for evaluating future jail needs and various management issues related to them. The government elects officials that may help in generating the requirement for this kind of information as well as organizing the support processes for collecting such information. All this will foster the criminal justice system for evaluating the data in the presence of criminal justice leaders (Cunniff 11). A great number of local justice authorities have computerized bases containing data about the jail population, so that the information on the individuals kept in jail can be easily obtained. An issue here is to create such a computer program that would extract the specific data for a certain period of time. This is the task that should be carried out not only by the computer programmers, but also the authorities of the criminal justice system. Data on jail populations should involve several different time periods and should be sufficient for fulfilling the information requirements.
Who is Held in a Jail?
According to the available data, the drug offenses, majorly drug possession are the major factors of adult arrests. Thus, those trading or using drugs are more likely to end up in jail in modern days as it is well known that drug abuse causes the increase of criminal activity in the state or even the whole country. Secondly, young adults aged from 18 to 35 years old are under a much higher risk of being imprisoned and sentenced to a jail term in comparison with other categories of the population. Although the quantity of young criminals has recently decreased, the population is likely to exhibit steady growth in the nearest future (Cunniff 25). Here, it needs to be said that the perception of the jail population is affected by the media that tends to give more preference to violent and heavy crimes. Thus, according to the media, jail holds dangerous criminals. Nevertheless, this category of criminals does not comprise the majority of jail population. A recent survey has shown that among the criminals who are likely to be imprisoned, there can be named those who commit rapes or other sexual offenses and various gangs that have been involved in violent actions against the public.
The Management Challenges and Complications
The above mentioned categories of jail population comprise those who are more likely to be held in jail than any other people involved in some sort of criminal activity. These kinds of criminals evolve many challenges and complications faced by the criminal justice management. If nothing is done in the nearest future, the dynamics of the jail population can become a major threat and challenge of the authorities (Gilmore 15). Changes in the resident population can also affect the jail population, but changes in the criminal justice system can have an even greater impact on the jail management activity. Here, proper decision making should be applied so as to deal with the problems related to jail population. The appropriate measures should be applied to all of the categories of criminals that comprise the major part of jail population.
Summary
In conclusion, the paper has observed the categories of criminals that are most likely to be held in jail as well as the challenges faced by the government and criminal justice authorities in this regard. It needs to be concluded that no matter what kind of crimes are the most frequently committed ones, the major challenge faced by the criminal justice system of today is the rapid growth of the jail population. All of the complications related to adults’ crimes should be dealt with as quickly as possible to prevent further increase of jail population.
Do you like this essay?
Our writers can write a paper like this for you!
(No Ratings Yet)
Loading...