HOW IS the argument built? What comes first? DO THE points follow a logical sequence or timeline? HOW DID the author divide the sections? DID THE author use a compare and contrast analysis? DID THE author present a problem and its solution? STRUCTURE OF THE ARGUMENT WHAT IS the tone? DOES THE word selection reveal any biases? IS THE LANGUAGE clear and vigorous? LANGUAGE WHOM IS the author addressing? WHAT IS the author’s purpose? WHAT EVIDENCE is used to support the author’s argument? WHAT IS the context of the work? CONTENT KNOW WHICH QUESTIONS TO ASK WHEN ANALYZING: Adapted from the Understanding Arguments page from the Walden University Writing Center website. UNDERSTANDING ARGUMENTS WEEK 2 © 2015 Laureate Education, Inc. Running head: OVERCROWDED PRISONS1 OVERCROWDED PRISONS7 Problem Evaluation: Overcrowded Prisons Alyssa Cunningham CJA/355 Matthew Kite March 5, 2018 Problem Evaluation: Overcrowded Prisons The correctional system plays an important role in the criminal justice system. Imprisonment serves as a method of locking away dangerous people for the purpose of protecting the public and rehabilitating people who have been caught committing various crimes so that they can be ready to be assimilated back into the communities with a lower risk of recidivism. Prisons also serve as a way of punishment, to discourage wrongdoing among the public. Due to these important roles, the criminal justice system has to imprison people. However, the system has experienced a huge problem of overcrowding because of the high rate of incarceration and the low availability of resources. Problem Identification Overcrowding of prisons is a huge problem that affects the United States criminal justice system. The United States prison population is growing at a higher rate than the government has been able to control. The number of incarcerated people was grown significantly between 1970 and 1990 during the government’s ‘war on drugs’ when the drug laws were enhanced to include more serious punishments for people involved in drug crimes. Additionally, the high prison population in the United States has been shown to be a result of the poor rehabilitation abilities of the prison system (Williams & Porter, 2016). Studies have shown that a majority of prisoners in the country are recidivists and drug offenders. The issue of prison overcrowding is a problem mainly because of the understaffing and the underfunding, which makes the prison conditions relatively poor. Therefore, it is important that this problem is examined and solutions developed to solve it. Quantifying the Problem Imprisonment is the most common form of punishment for criminal activity in the United States. It is estimated that America has the second highest imprisonment rate per capita in the world, only after Seychelles. As at 2014, it was recorded that there are 735 incarcerated people per 100,000 of the population. This value was increased by approximat ...

1. HOW IS
the argument built?
What comes first?
DO THE
points follow a logical sequence
or timeline?
HOW DID
the author divide the sections?
DID THE
author use a compare and
contrast analysis?
DID THE
author present a problem and
its solution?
STRUCTURE
OF THE
ARGUMENT
WHAT IS
the tone?
DOES THE
word selection reveal
any biases?
IS THE LANGUAGE

2. clear and vigorous?
LANGUAGE
WHOM IS
the author addressing?
WHAT IS
the author’s purpose?
WHAT EVIDENCE
is used to support the author’s
argument?
WHAT IS
the context of the work?
CONTENT
KNOW WHICH QUESTIONS TO ASK WHEN ANALYZING:
Adapted from the Understanding Arguments page from
the Walden University Writing Center website.
UNDERSTANDING
ARGUMENTS
WEEK
2
© 2015 Laureate Education, Inc.
Running head: OVERCROWDED PRISONS1
OVERCROWDED PRISONS7

3. Problem Evaluation: Overcrowded Prisons
Alyssa Cunningham
CJA/355
Matthew Kite
March 5, 2018
Problem Evaluation: Overcrowded Prisons
The correctional system plays an important role in the criminal
justice system. Imprisonment serves as a method of locking
away dangerous people for the purpose of protecting the public
and rehabilitating people who have been caught committing
various crimes so that they can be ready to be assimilated back
into the communities with a lower risk of recidivism. Prisons
also serve as a way of punishment, to discourage wrongdoing
among the public. Due to these important roles, the criminal
justice system has to imprison people. However, the system has
experienced a huge problem of overcrowding because of the
high rate of incarceration and the low availability of resources.
Problem Identification
Overcrowding of prisons is a huge problem that affects the
United States criminal justice system. The United States prison
population is growing at a higher rate than the government has
been able to control. The number of incarcerated people was
grown significantly between 1970 and 1990 during the
government’s ‘war on drugs’ when the drug laws were enhanced
to include more serious punishments for people involved in drug
crimes. Additionally, the high prison population in the United
States has been shown to be a result of the poor rehabilitation
abilities of the prison system (Williams & Porter, 2016). Studies
have shown that a majority of prisoners in the country are

4. recidivists and drug offenders. The issue of prison
overcrowding is a problem mainly because of the understaffing
and the underfunding, which makes the prison conditions
relatively poor. Therefore, it is important that this problem is
examined and solutions developed to solve it.
Quantifying the Problem
Imprisonment is the most common form of punishment for
criminal activity in the United States. It is estimated that
America has the second highest imprisonment rate per capita in
the world, only after Seychelles. As at 2014, it was recorded
that there are 735 incarcerated people per 100,000 of the
population. This value was increased by approximately 100
prisoners from the 698 value recorded the previous year
(Tewksbury & Stickle, 2016). However, by 2017, the
government had managed to reduce the imprisonment per capita
rate to 673. In spite of this reduction, the United States prison
system still hold inmates beyond its maximum capacity.
There are currently approximately 1.5 million people in the
Federal prison system in the United States. Although there is a
decreasing trend in the prison population during the past few
years, the rate at which the population is decreasing is too low
to deal with the overpopulation issue. At least 7 states have
more than 25% of the prison’s capacity in population. The state
with the highest overpopulation which has approximately 190%
capacity. Illinois has a capacity of approximately 144%. In
2007, the State of California was forced to declare a state of
emergency because of the overcrowding issue in its state’s
prisons (Tewksbury & Stickle, 2016).
Prison overcrowding can is likely to be a problem resulting
from the tougher sentences for crimes involving drugs. The
image below shows the changes in the prison populations
between 1980s and 2010s.
From the graph, it can be seen that the prison population grew
at the highest rate from the 1980s. It is estimated that the war

5. on drugs that took place in the 1980s caused the quadrupling of
the prison population. One in every 31 people was either in
prison, on probation, or on parole as a result of drug related
crime (Williams & Porter, 2016).
Additionally, the prison population has been high because of the
high rate of recidivism. According to a study done by the
National Institute of Justice, approximately 67% of prisoners
are rearrested within three years after they have been released.
76.6 percent are rearrested within five years. More than half of
released prisoners are rearrested within just a year after release
(Durose et al., 2011). With the high rate of recidivism, it is hard
for the prison system to maintain low prisoners because those
that are released end up going back.
Importance of Solving the Problem
It is important that the prison overcrowding issue is solved
because it limits the quality of the criminal justice system.
There are many risks that the prison system faces as a result of
the high capacity of prisoners relative to the available
resources. One of the risks of the overcrowding is the worsening
of the prison conditions. When there are too many prisoners and
too little resources to manage them, there is an increased risk of
issues such as sanitation. Healthcare in the prisons is likely to
be an issue if the prison population is not reduced. The risk of
the spread of diseases within the prisons has been increased
significantly because of the access capacity. The spread of
infectious diseases is often worse in populations that are
crowded. Some examples of illnesses that the prisoners are at
the risk of spreading include HIV/AIDS, Hepatitis C, and
Tuberculosis.
Prison overcrowding also needs to be dealt with because it puts
too much pressure on the inmates as well as the employees in
the correctional facilities. Although they are in a correctional
facility, the inmates need to be provided with a comfortable
environment where they can get a chance to be rehabilitated as
opposed to being exposed to stress. Issues such as prison
violence can be reduced if the prisoners has a better

6. environment where there are enough prisoners per facility. The
prison employees also need to have positive working conditions,
which have been hard to provide given the overpopulation issue.
Solving the overcrowding issue is also important because it will
help to improve government spending on the prison system. The
rate of spending on correctional facilities in the U.S. has grown
three times more than in the education system (Kelly, 2016). If
the government can reduce the prison population, then it can
deal with the spending issue.
Proposed
Solution
s to the Problem
There are various strategies that can be applied to reduce the
prison populations significantly. The justice system should use
other forms of sentencing on more crimes. For instance, the
application probation, house arrest, community service, and
diversion programs should be extended to more forms of
offenses to reduce the rate of incarceration. Additionally,
assisted drug offenders should be placed under proper drug use
rehabilitation as opposed to being forced into prison without
proper medical care.
The population of the United States prisons can also be reduced
through the improvement of the rehabilitation and community
reentry programs in the current justice system. The high rate of
repeat offenses shows that the current prison system is not

7. successful in rehabilitating the prisoners and facilitating their
reentry into the communities. New strategies for behavioral
change should be developed to reduce the rate at which
prisoners repeat their offenses after release.
Lastly, the easiest way that the government can deal with the
overcrowding issue is through the building of new prisons and
the expansion of the already existing prisons. However, this
solution does not solve the underlying issues that cause the
overcrowding in the first place. Therefore, there is a chance that
with time the prisons might become overcrowded again.
Therefore, it is important that the solutions presented above are
given more consideration as they help to reduce the rate of
incarceration.
References
Durose, Matthew R., Alexia D. Cooper, and Howard N. Snyder,
Recidivism of Prisoners Released in 30 States in 2005: Patterns
from 2005 to 2010 (pdf, 31 pages), Bureau of Justice Statistics
Special Report, April 2014, NCJ 244205.
Kelly, S. (2016, July8). U.S. Spending on prisons grew at three
times rate of school spending. Reuters. Retrieved from:
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-education-funding/u-s-
spending-on-prisons-grew-at-three-times-rate-of-school-
spending-report-idUSKCN0ZN2L2
Tewksbury, R., & Stickle, B. F. (2016). Prison Populations. The

8. Encyclopedia of Crime and Punishment.
Williams, C. L., & Porter, J. R. (2016). An examination of
inmate physical assaults on jail correctional staff: Exploring
inmate-level and jail-level conditions in the United
States. Deviant Behavior, 37(11), 1239-1251.