Prison
PAST-Feysal
Who was Dorothea Dix and what was her role in the prison reform movement? What two groups of people did she observe in jail and how were they treated? Who did she speakto about the horrors she saw and the outcome? |
| An illustration of East Cambridge Jail. |
PRESENT-Jerelle
Do you believe that the criminal justice system needs to be reformed?
In the article, Criminal Justice Facts it is presented that, “The United States is the world’s leader in incarceration. There are 2.2 million people in the nation’s prisons and jails—a 500% increase over the last 40 years.” If that was surprising, it is even more shocking that it is not crime rates that account for this immense rise in prisoners, but changes in the criminal justice laws. It is evident that action must be taken to reform America’s criminal justice system. This is supported by the article because it states, “Harsh sentencing laws like mandatory minimums, combined with cutbacks in parole release, keep people in prison for longer periods of time.” It is simply unjust to prolong a person’s time in prison because of strict sentencing laws. Therefore, change is mandatory in order to restore justice to the U.S. criminal justice system and to remove our title of being the world leader in incarceration.
source: https://www.sentencingproject.org/criminal-justice-facts/
 Life sentences are due to strict criminal justice laws. |
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| “The United States is the world’s leader in incarceration." |
Hi Feysal,
ReplyDeleteI'd like to comment on what I have learned about prisons in the 1800s. I think that it was, in a way, very unorganized to mix the mentally ill and children with the criminals. I also think that Dorothea Dix was right to try and create facilities for the mentally ill, with it being unfair that they were not given separate care. Children also should not have been locked up for trying to find food or survive, there should have been separate areas for them as well. My opinions were influenced by this website-
http://www.mylearning.org/prison-and-penal-reform-in-the-1800s/p-3270/
Thanks for your information, Serena
Hello Jerelle,
ReplyDeleteI agree that the criminal justice system do need to be redone because some of them are not fair and some of them are taken advantage of. Also, if we change the laws our system would be much fair and yes, we wouldn't have to be the highest of the crime rates in world wide. To learn more: https://www.government.nl/topics/administration-of-justice-and-dispute-settlement/improving-the-performance-of-the-criminal-justice-system
-Aika Harris
Dear Jerelle,
ReplyDeleteI agree on your opinion that the criminal justice system needs to be reformed. There are many unfair things in crime laws. One thing is that U.S. crime laws are extremely strict, which means that more people than necessary are put in jail every year. The link below takes you through the years and shows how U.S. crime laws were made stricter over the years:
(http://www.genfkd.org/tough-on-crime-united-states-packed-prisons)
Best regards,
Nobonita
Authors,
ReplyDeleteI wonder why every other country has such a low rate of criminals serving life sentences. But why the US has numbers drastically rising was what I needed clarified. What I've found out is that the violent crime rate has dropped, but the murder rate has been approximately rising. I was surprised to see that in 1984, the US life sentence rate was only 34,000, while in 2016, it rose up to 161,957. (https://www.forbes.com/sites/niallmccarthy/2017/05/05/report-the-number-of-people-serving-life-sentences-in-the-u-s-is-surging-infographic/#5f576615691d)
-josh with a lowercase j
Dear Classmates,
ReplyDeleteI think Dorothea Dix did a great thing by talking to people in jail, and helping them get through the rough time of being in prison. Also she helped people that needed it the most, mentally ill orphans. They already had a rough live being a orphan, with them having a disability, and being in jail. their life sounds rough, and they needed a person to express their feelings to, and that was Dorothea Dix. Check out this link to learn more about what Dorothea Dix did. http://www.anb.org/view/10.1093/anb/9780198606697.001.0001/anb-9780198606697-e-1500181
Dear bloggers,
ReplyDeleteAs I read through what Dix did with these criminals giving them hope for a brighter future really touched my heart. She didn’t care what they did to deserve to be in jail she wanted to help them to a better future.
Antonella Tello
dear authors i completely disagree with the entire prison system. Instead of people facing 10 years for minor drug posessions there are alternate punishments that wouldnt destroy peoples lives like jail would. Also many bad things happen at jails. Sexual harrasment, killings, drugs, weapons etc. Many things can be changed within the system that would make it much better. sincerely yahaira
ReplyDeleteHello Jerelle,
ReplyDeleteI don't believe our prison system to be up to par. The fact that our government pays more attention to opening up prisons, than keeping up the education system. After reading the article in which I found I was able to find out that our country only makes up 5% of the world's population, yet we have almost 25% of the prison population. Evidently, spending more time on prisoners than students, will obviously bring that rate to increase more and more.
The article I used; https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/fact-checker/wp/2015/07/07/yes-u-s-locks-people-up-at-a-higher-rate-than-any-other-country/?utm_term=.89e8a51564bf
Best Regards,
Isabella
Dear Jerelle,
ReplyDeleteI believe our criminal justice system does need to be reformed, it's sad that the government puts more money into prison than our schools. I also read that if a child can't read by 4th grade they save a jail cell for them which is totally messed up. http://www.wral.com/fact-check-do-nc-prisons-use-reading-scores-to-predict-future-growth-/16168069/
Dear Bloggers
ReplyDeleteI agree with the criminal justice system being reformed becaused then our crime rate could go down. Though this article says that it has been going down https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/9/6/16259258/us-murder-crime-2017
Dear authors,
ReplyDeleteI agree that our criminal justice system needs to be reformed because strict sentencing laws in prison keep a person in prison for an even longer time. Also the longer a person stays in jail, the more likely he is to commit a crime. Here is an article that tells why we need a criminal justice reform: https://www.brookings.edu/blog/brookings-now/2017/08/30/the-need-for-criminal-justice-reform/
I also disagree with the imprisonment system. I think that prison should be a place were justice is served and criminals pay for their crimes, not some sort of dumping grounds to put all the people with special needs. Instead of being locked up and caged like animals for crimes they didn't commit, I think they should be getting help.
ReplyDelete