Background
Overcrowding in prison is a significant issue that affects a lot of countries. It is challenging to detect this controversial term as there is no single and uniform internationally accepted standard. Undoubtedly, this notion must be neutralized and counteracted, as inmates’ mental and physical conditions might be negatively affected to a great extent, and it can entail convicts’ self-harm or violent and hostile behaviors towards others.
Prison overcrowding also impacts prisoners’ health conditions and well-being and adversely affects the prison system and public health. Overcrowding in prison entails a staggering increase in disease prevalence, especially psychiatric and infectious disorders. It can prevent social rehabilitation work and lead to degrading and inhuman treatment of prison staff workers. Increasing awareness about this issue is a significant element in eliminating this deficit in health care and social welfare.
Overcrowded prisons are contributing factors for health issues spread in jails. These prisons create complex and pervasive challenges to adjust inmates’ health and provide them with a safe environment. Overcrowded prisons can “lead to unsanitary, violent conditions that are harmful to the physical and mental well-being of prisoners” (MacDonald, 2018, p.1). Prison staff are also at several risks in a range of ways. They face potential violence from inmates and increased stress and mental health issues, and the threat of infections. Nowadays, the scale of overcrowding remains enormous, as the number of prisoners regularly increases globally.
There are a lot of discussions concerning the negative and even irreversible consequences of overcrowding in prisons. While authorities and social activists raise this issue, there are two responses. The first one is to build more prisons to distribute inmates or reduce convicts by utilizing particular reforms such as death penalty implementation, which is not humane, or early release programs. Unfortunately, these stated solutions cannot resolve this controversial issue in the long-standing reduction of the prison population. More recently, the Council of Europe addressed the issue of overcrowded prisons in the White Paper published in 2016 (European Committee on Crime Problems).
The White Paper suggests moving away from increasing prison capacity and offers other short-term measures that might eliminate the primary causes of overcrowding. This paper also presents implementing “more use of alternatives to custody and make lesser use of detention in order, among others, to reduce prison population growth” (Council of Europe, 2016, p. 85). The White Paper claims to reassess the national penal law; and decriminalize several offenses that might be interchanged by alternative sanctions, such as victim restitution, community sentences, and more elaborate monitoring and evaluation of prisons by external evaluators.
Eliminating prison overcrowding is the profound initiative to combat this problem and concern for staff and prisoners’ health condition resulting from the negative impact of working and living in overcrowded prison houses. These preventive measures embrace programs dealing with drug addiction, as well as education improvement and working skills. Both the UNODC (2013) and the White Paper (2016) recommend eradicating overcrowding in prison, claiming to organize fair sentencing structures and facilitate well-structured healthcare programs to drive societal reintegration and eliminate the effect of the “revolving door” in the prison adjustment.
Obviously, prison staff working in overcrowded prisons might develop control methods in the prison environment to reduce increasing violence and conflicts among inmates and prison workers. Prison managers or administrators encountering the convicts’ population believe that it is challenging to satisfy international guidelines and standards to guarantee human and ethical conditions for convicts. Nowadays, it is getting more difficult to monitor prisoners’ behavior patterns in an overcrowding environment. This situation imposes high pressure on financial resources that might help provide criminals with more extra space.
Effects of Overcrowding
Submitting a Safe Environment for Inmates
The lack of financial resources and the absence of control forces is the primary root of the increasing growth of the prison population. Currently, prisons are rampant with severe criminal affairs and drug abuse in this environment, as these notions can hardly be regulated by prison staff because of overcrowding. All these cases cause mental stress disorders and breakdowns among convicts. According to annual statistics, there is an excellent rate of prisoners committing suicides as they cannot put up with these conditions.
Violent and unsanitary conditions in overcrowded prisons
Over the past decades, the criminal justice system has reduced prison staffing and budget. All these changes have made this institute overstretched and overcrowded; because of overcrowding, it has become next to impossible to provide decency and safety standards in terms of violent and unsanitary conditions for inmates (Prison Reform Trust, 2017). Due to the lack of appropriate regulations, criminals are so-called free in their actions and might commit criminal misdemeanors or severe crimes within the prison frame.
Prisoners’ Physical Health Well-being, and Emotional/ Mental Conditions
Due to the shortage of prison officers eligible to conduct peace and order in prisons, prisoners’ health care is affected negatively. Officers are liable for monitoring the way they attend health care facilities when prisoners need health care services and appointments. Evidently, because of the lack of prison personnel that has to escort prisoners to health care managers, inmates with their problems, be it mental issues or physical injuries, are left unattended.
Alcohol and Drug Addiction
Many jails in America look the same way, especially when it comes to overcrowded rural prisons. A majority of inmates confront the harsh reality in terms of cramped living conditions and the commonplace violations of human rights. Oppel Jr. (2019) claims that drug issues continue to develop into American rural districts as the increasing number of drug addicts in rural communities are caught or detected carrying out narcotic substances by local law enforcement representatives. Rural communities hold to conventional methods of resolving drug and alcohol addiction issues. Additionally, drug and alcohol offenders are put behind bars where living conditions are terrible; those drug users might be compared to animals living in jails.
Law enforcement representatives cannot handle drug offenses in the prison environment properly. If a person is caught red-handed taking drugs in a big city, they are sentenced to be imprisoned in rural districts. In urban areas, the jail population drove up by 27%, which is an alarming number. This critical problem in urban communities develops over the prison system. This jail problem represents one of the most significant issues in the US because of the absence of social health objectives. In fact, urban communities report that they want to send drug offenders to special rehab clinics and treatment health care clinics instead of prison houses. Still, it is next to impossible due to several obstacles. The first one is the shortage of clinics for drug users in urban places. The second one is the lack of funding capital, making it easier to put offenders in jails rather than take care of their physical and emotional well-being.
Broader Side-Effects of Excessive Imprisonment
The negative impact of excessive imprisonment does not occur within the prison frame and walls, as it can entail detrimental and irreversible consequences on public health. Obviously, overcrowded prisons need more financial capital to maintain their work, but the cost of excessive imprisonment might be the profound reason for the poverty level increase in some countries (Joseph et al., 2021). It is not financially profitable to fund or allocate financial resources to these special facilities. It might entail the growth of socio and economically marginalized segments within people living in urban areas. Researchers have proven that the cost of excessive imprisonment affects individuals living in impoverished conditions in a disproportional way. Public health and imprisonment
Prison overcrowding is supposed to be the center of disease incubators that impose detrimental effects on inmates and people who interact with them. Convicts spread diseases and viruses to the outside world and communities while communicating with visitors and prison staff. The pre-trial detention might pose a high risk of spreading catchy diseases among convicts and representatives of the outside community. Detainees of the pre-trial process have fewer chances to have adequate health care in comparison with prisoners.
During prisoners’ detention in unsanitary and overcrowded conditions, detainees of the pre-trial process are at a high risk of catching infections, such as HIV/AIDS, Hepatitis C, TB. When the pre-trial detention is over, detainees take these diseases to the prison communities, spreading them via personal interaction. The negative implication for overall public health is evident, taking into account that most prisoners are released into the outside communities without proper and adequate medical surveillance and treatment.
Roots of Overcrowded Prisons
Imprisonment Rates and Crime Trends
Considering the worldwide statistics, it might be supposed that the significant increases in overcrowded prisons and imprisonment rates are a primary consequence of skyrocketing criminal activity far and wide. In fact, researches have shown that the imprisonment and crime rates develop independently from each other. Individuals who mull over the real reasons for overcrowded prison existence have to begin with understanding the core elements, branches, and mechanisms of the particular jurisdiction processes. There is no need to refer to criminal trends that are liable for the high crime rate in a particular country. It is necessary to evaluate the entire criminal justice system with visible gaps that have to be patched via developing special policies and effective programs to come up with solutions to eliminate overcrowding in prisons. It stands to reason that the demographic growth in a particular country predisposes the increasing number of residents in prisons.
Delays in the Criminal Justice Process
Delays in the criminal justice process negatively impact the excessive number of prisoners with the pre-trial process. The pre-trial detention process can last for several months and even years in some countries. Awaiting trials, especially when it comes to capital cases, expand the size of the population in prisoners, entailing their overcrowding. There are many reasons why these situations happen, and they have a reasonable basis for explanations, but all of them influence the development of excessive imprisonment.
Inadequate Prison Infrastructure and Capacity
Due to the excessive prisoner growth, it is getting next to impossible to provide inmates with passable accommodations and decent living conditions. Building additional supportive facilities and annex accommodations for convicts are considered to be less effective strategies for addressing excessive imprisonment. As long as the drawbacks in criminal justice policies and systems are not appealed to rationalize prisoner overflow, social activists and authorities cannot solve the overcrowding issue. While beneficial crime prevention methods are not penetrated in the system, the lack of prison infrastructure should not be considered as the primary cause of prison overcrowding.
Still, it should be treated as a malfunction in the criminal system. As a rule, the lack of space for inmates is not the primary reason for prison overcrowding. The excessive imprisonment issue happens because of the inefficient management structure of available space distribution or particular policies providing additional accommodation spaces.
Strategies to Reduce Overcrowded Prisons
Provide Fair Social Policies and Crime Prevention
The major reasons for prison overcrowding might be assessed under the proper and detailed evaluation of public policies and institutes dealing with criminal justice systems. Malfunctions and problems in these bodies are relevant to the problem of excessive overcrowding. The elaborate assessment of the unique reasons for prison overcrowding in these social contexts is the fundamental tool of devising successful long-term strategies to cut the number of overflowing prisoners. It is essential to formulate and stand up to social marginalization and poverty in order to prevent violence and crime and finally reduce overcrowding in prison houses.
Most countries are ready to facilitate the development of comprehensive and special strategies that aim at tailoring national needs. Such relevant components as complete education, supportive and fair social strategies, policies, and crime prevention measures might help prevent crime affairs and further prison overcrowding. Beneficial practices embrace cooperation and collaboration among social activists and in-power ministers that might influence the general public’s enlightenment. These strategies depend on politicians who implement or lobby reforms or plans backed up by financial investment to resolve major social issues.
Obviously, education activities and public evidence-bases are suitable means that are not the only measures to prevent crime issues (Meloni, 2021). Politicians have to reconsider the majority of criminal justice reforms and implement punitive measures that might stop wrongdoers from committing crimes. Besides, authorities have to develop standards and strategies to gain public support via communicating with the public.
Collect Data Information and Use it to Create a Rational Cost-Effective Usage of Prisons
Reducing the excessive population in prison houses needs a complex understanding of the root of this issue and the causes of overcrowding. Research-based information might facilitate rational sessions and debates concerning the most effective and valuable prison usage. Social activists and authorities which represent juridical policies might help advocacy to correspond to international requirements and standards. Tapping into the great expanses of information repositories to collect it and then evaluate might assist politicians in communicating it directly to the public to reduce or prevent crime.
Redirect Minor Criminal Cases and Misdemeanors out of the Criminal Justice System
As prison houses act out as rehabilitation facilities, where inmates are sent to reassess their behaviors, it is essential to prosecute minor misdemeanors and offenses in a different way. Most countries have the regime of fines, sues, and reprimands to punish wrongdoers and use the imprisonment measure as a last resort. These nations have a diversion system that warns alleged criminals of the prospective sub-consequences of their offensive behaviors. This strategy helps prisons operate as a measure only for severe criminals sentenced to the long-term confinement period.
Suggest Alternative Ways of Punishment for People with Children (Mother with Babies)
While a single parent is detained, children’s interest, especially babies, has to be taken into account. Courts have to analyze what impacts on children’s emotional well-being their parents’ arrest might cause. The central role of justice is to create a balance within social institutes and bodies, thus satisfying the needs of all citizens. In case a mother commits a crime, the first measure should be precautionary in the forms of fines, correctional works, and others. When it comes to sentencing a pregnant woman, it is necessary to impose non-custodial sanctions and measures on her where it is possible and appropriate. All these strategies might be helpful in reducing prison overcrowding.
From my perspective, prison overcrowding is a highly controversial issue that is challenging to solve. There are a lot of strategies devised, but it is difficult to usher them into practice. These plans outlining the reduction of excessive imprisonment are just a formality that needs to be implemented in real life. The alarming problem is that overcrowded prisons are spreading viruses that might affect either prisoners or staff workers. Staff workers are the representative of the outside communities that are at a high risk of catching diseases.
The issue of prison overcrowding is still open, as authorities and activists put in their efforts to resolve this controversial issue that causes a lot of problems to the public health within a concrete community. Inmates are not the only people who suffer from this issue; prison staff and ordinary people are at high risk of being infected with viruses spread in the prison environment. This issue is much spoken nowadays; the situation needs drastic changes to be implemented.
References
Joseph, O. E., Femi, A. F., Ogadimma, A., Bamidele, R., Oluwakemisola, O., Akintoyese, O. I., & Jide Joseph, O. (2021). Prison overcrowding trend in Nigeria and policy implications on health. Cogent Social Sciences, 7(1), 115-137.
MacDonald, M. (2018). Overcrowding and its impact on prison conditions and health. International Journal of Prisoner Health, 3(1), 23-37
Meloni, K. E. (2021). Proactive remedies to prevent permanent solutions: enacting narrowly crafted legislative reform to reduce jail suicides. Health Matrix, 31(1), 437-446.
Oppel Jr., R.A. (2019). A cesspool of a dungeon: the surging population in rural jails. The New Your Times. Web.
White Paper on Prison Overcrowding. (2016). European Committee on Crime Problems. Web.