Juvenile vs. Adult Criminal System, Research Paper Example

The Government cannot give up responsibility for the custody of a prisoner but it may seek to use Private firms or contractors to provide prisons, jails and custodial services.  With an estimated 1:100 US people in Jail the current prison services are running out of space and accommodation and this has caused the need for external service provision in the private sector.  The history of prisons provides an indication that has led to the current day crisis, consider:

• 1930’s witnessed greater use of prisons
• From 1925-39 incarceration = 132/100,000 residents
• Black prisoners 3 X that of whites
• 1930’s heralded 100 years of American penal systems
• The 2nd world war saw a decline in prisoners

It is easy to see from the graph on the right how imprisonment has escalated in the USA from around 1980 onwards when President Nixon declared the war on drugs and the sentencing reform act of 1994.  In the 1960’s and 1970’s we saw incarceration relatively stable until 1974 (162/100,000 residents) and by 1984 these figures had rose dramatically to (318.100,000 residents) and 1995  (600/100,000 residents). A large part of these figures are attributed to drug related crimes.  However from an ethnic viewpoint there are 7 blacks to 1 white in jail.  There has been an increase in juvenile crime and much of this has been declared a social problem relative to poor areas of the larger Cities like Los Angeles and Chicago.  The California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) is the largest state run prison institution in the USA. It has 37 correctional institutes, 18 community correction facilities and 8 juvenile facilities housing more than 165,000 adults and over 3,200 juveniles. (e-notes, 2010) Some recent interesting statistics in the USA indicate that about 62% victims of non-fatal violence occur at the hands of juvenile offenders.  95 % of sexual assaults were committed by youths under the age of 18.  Some 74% of reported juvenile offences said the perpetrator was a male.  61% of simple assaults were carried out by juveniles.  One area singled out as having the most continued troublesome record was Los Angeles in California.  (Montaldo, C. 2009)

Works Cited

e-notes. (2010). California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation. Retrieved 10 16, 2010, from E-Notes: http://www.enotes.com/topic/California_Department_of_Corrections_and_Rehabilitation#Divisions_and_Boards

Montaldo, C. (2009). Most Juvenile Crime Victims Are Other Juveniles. Retrieved 11 17, 2009, from http://crime.about.com/od/juvenile/a/juvenile_vics.htm