9.3: Current Issues and Problems in Corrections

Concerns about safety and security play a major role in shaping how societies respond to crime and punishment. In the United States, fear of crime has strongly influenced public opinion and policy, often leading to stricter laws and harsher sentencing practices. Over time, these approaches have contributed to significant changes within the correctional system, including rising incarceration rates, tougher drug policies, and increased attention to gang activity. At the same time, new challenges have emerged, such as the growing population of aging inmates and the financial and ethical issues that come with it. Understanding these developments provides important insight into how punishment policies are formed and their broader impact on individuals, communities, and the criminal justice system.

Mass Incarceration

The section on punishment started with a discussion about feeling safe and secure in our homes. Feeling safe and secure in person and at home is arguably one of the most discussed feelings in our nation today. Our fear of crime influences how we think and act day to day. This has caused great fluctuation in the United States in regard to how we punish people who are convicted of violating the law. In part, punishment comes from the will of the people, which is then carried out by the legislative process, and converted into sentencing practices. However, has our desire to feel safe and secure been taken too far by policy? And, have these policies created even bigger problems for us as community members? Here is a comparison of the United States prison systems to other countries around the world.

Figure \(\PageIndex{1}\): Source: The Sentencing Project

War on Drugs and Gangs

The war on drugs, initiated by President Nixon in 1971, was framed as an all-out war to eradicate drugs in the United States. The massive expenditures toward the ending of the drug epidemic also shifted our views on drug use. We became much more punitive towards drugs, treating it as more of a criminal justice issue rather than as a substance dependence issue. Good or bad, drug use was demonized in the public and media, which aided in the development of much tougher sanctions on drug use in America. The Drug Enforcement Agency was created in 1973 to provide another arm of the government to tackle the specific issue of drugs. By the 1980s, lengthy sentences for drug possession were also in place. One to five-year sentences for possession were increased to upwards of 25 years. There was also an increased focus on gangs, which were held responsible for the majority of the drug trade in the United States.

Gang activity in the United States was prevalent long before the enactment of the War on Drugs. However, once the linkage between our fear of crime and the drug trade by gangs became more pronounced due to the war on drugs, the conflict escalated. While there are hundreds of different gangs in many neighborhoods and communities in the United States today, gangs in prison have converged into four main gangs, or what corrections call security threat groups (STGs). These four basic gangs include the Whites, the Blacks, the Southerners (Sureños, or EME), and the Northerners (Norteños). Not only are these STGs considered violent inside and outside of prison, but they are also actively involved in the continuing drug trade in the United States today, even behind bars. Many of the leaders of all gangs on the streets are held in one prison in California, at Pelican Bay State Prison.

Within the prisons in the United States, gangs actively recruit members, communicate with gangs on the streets, run the drug trade, and are also at war with each other over the power within the institutions from their perspective. There have been numerous documentaries on gangs in the United States and even mainstream films about gangs and gang life, both inside and out. A few notable examples of films to watch on this subject include Felon (2008), Shot Caller (2017), and American Me (1992).

Aging

One of the side effects of lengthier sentences is that the individuals in prison grow older. Thus, the number of individuals in prison over 55 years old has dramatically increased. As McKillop and Boucher relate in figure 9.16, based on BJS data, there has been a 280 percent increase in individuals aged 55 and older (2018).

Optionally, you may visit Aging Prison Populations Drive Up Costs [Website], which shows that there is a growing cost within this subpopulation. McKillop and Boucher relay that the cost of this group of individuals can be upwards of three times the cost of the normal incarcerated individual, roughly 30k to 100k per individual (Jone, 2018).

Beyond just the cost of incarcerated individuals, a more philosophical question has arisen in regard to how to treat them as they enter their last phase in life. Some have advocated for compassionate releases for individuals entering hospice care or requiring assisted living conditions. Others articulate that this is unfair to put the burden on the aging individual, as they have been incarcerated for long periods of time and have few self-support options available. You may learn more in a powerful documentary on this matter. Edgar Barens details these issues in the film The Prison Terminal (2013).⁴⁰

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⁴⁰Suplee, R., Gonzalez, M., Arungwa, S., et al (2025)