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Introduction
The justice system has experienced substantial organizational growth and improvement over the years. This growth promoted individualized treatment of offenders achieved through institutionalization which led to establishment of prisons, juvenile courts among other rehabilitation facilities. These institutions serve the purpose of rehabilitating prisoners as well as instilling desirable values among them.
Over the years, the crime rates and prison population have escalated substantially across most regions in the world. This has consequently resulted in overcrowding of correctional facilities and prisons. Prison congestion is a widespread problem that cuts across most regions and needs to be urgently addressed due to its negative effects on the process of rehabilitation of offenders.
Reasons for Prison Congestion
Although no direct correlation between crime rates and prison has been established, several explanations have been put forward to explain the rising problem of prison congestion. Prisons may be overcrowded due to failure to allocate resources or lack of resources to establish adequate modern prisons to accommodate the increasing number of prisoners.
In addition, elevated crime rate increases the number of people carrying imprisonment sentences consequently promoting prison congestion. In most regions, congestion in the criminal justice system begins in courts where the overall judicial process is slow. Prison congestion consequently arises since large numbers of offenders are held indefinitely in prisons awaiting trial or due to missing files and complex law procedures.
Sentencing policies in the criminal justice system plays a significant role in influencing the number of people serving jail terms. These sentencing policies are highly influenced by public opinion. There is need for reforms in the criminal justice legal system in order to discourage unnecessary and unfair sentencing.
Further, most criminal justice systems are often associated with corruption, irregularities and malpractices which increases cases of unjustified sentencing. In developing countries, the highest proportion of the population is poor hence lacks the resources to hire private legal representation.
Although some countries such as United States provide legal representation for the financially incapable, the wealthy often face lower convictions rates for similar crimes than the less fortunate.
Most criminal justice systems lack after care and follow up services for discharged inmates. After care services are a very important follow up strategy on offenders designed to transform the offender social isolation and dependence resulting from imprisonment and to further accelerate his ability to adjust in the community (Devi 216).
Often ex-convict face ostracism from society and this may hinder their improvement efforts. After care services promote improvement among the discharged offender hence reducing the likelihood of repetition of offence which may lead to imprisonment (Devi 216).
Effects of prison congestion
In addition to hindering effective rehabilitation process, prison congestion adversely affect the lives of the prisoners and the society at large. The criminal justice system often fails to respond to crime in a humane and efficient manner hence in most parts of the world, prisons display elements of violation of human rights.
Research has revealed that prison conditions adversely affect inmates’ lives which in some cases lead to death. This raises the question whether prison are institutions of rehabilitation or punishment. For the society to regain confidence in the criminal justice system, the system should ensure that the criminal rehabilitation process is effective and offenders are transformed into law abiding citizens.
Possible Solutions to the Problem of Congestion in Prisons
The criminal justice systems need to be reformed such that they incorporate and ensures that the human rights standards are not violated in prisons. This can be achieved through extensive training of criminal justice personnel.
In order to significantly reduce incidences of overcrowding in prisons in our countries, overall sentencing policy should be reviewed and the criminal justice system should ensure that the law governing criminal offences reserves imprisonment sentences to extreme cases that require in structured and monitored institutions (Devi 211).
Minor offenders and offenders who can reform through therapeutic settings in the community should not be imprisoned but should be released under probation basis (Devi 211).
The reformed convicts who have served enough in jail should be set free as long as they are not a threat to the society. However, such provisions have to include extensive analysis of risk management, coping and adjusting capabilities of the inmates preceding their release to ensure that they do not face circumstances that will prompt them to go back to their previous wayward behaviors.
The question regarding investment on prisons should be approached purely as a human resource development issue aiming at improvement in the quality of life among a country’s population in addition to protecting the society from criminals and crime incidences (Devi 212) and not merely as wastage of resources.
Conclusion
Prison congestion is a major problem that needs to be addressed in order for the criminal justice system to perform effectively. Overcrowding of prisons hinders rehabilitation process and negatively impacts on society. It is therefore vital for the legal system to formulate and implement policies that are geared towards reduction of the number of people in these institutions.
This will allow easier management and rehabilitation of offenders under improved conditions which will ensures that the sole purpose of the criminal justice system which is to ensure that criminals transform into reliable and law abiding citizens is achieved.
Works Cited
Devi, Laxmi. Encyclopedia of social change. New Delhi: Anmol publications PVT. Ltd, 1996
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