Alternatives to Prison for Non Violent Drug Offenders: Outline
I. Maryland has one of the leading epidemics in the incarceration of non violent drug offenders and on any one day Maryland can have over 28,000 inmates, but only 15 percent of them are there for felonies and the remaining 85 percent have misdemeanors for non violent offenses and have omitted to being engaged in drug uses. These inmates never receive any type of treatment during or after their incarceration (Open Society Institute).
A. Maryland has had an increase in the prison population and now exceeds 100 percent of the capacity due to over crowding from; incarcerating drug offenders due to the “ War on Drugs”, public pressure to support “ getting tough on crime, increased sentencing lengths, and a large population that is incarcerated for probation, revocation, and technical violations (Lavine)
1. American prisons grew to become so high costly populated because of people feeling a fear of law breakers, and in turn voted for lawmakers to promised an action (Murphy)
2. Criminal Justice policies have soared during that last few years. Law makers have begun the implementing of “three strikes” and “truth in Sentencing” to crack down on criminals on the street (open Society Institute).
C. There should be alternatives to prison for non violent drug offenders because cost rates reduce, rehabilitation increases, and recidivism reduces.
II. Prisons are very costly to the taxpayers due to the meticulous up keep of the institutions as well as prisoners themselves( Macallair), and the building of new prisons to accommodate the over flowing population in already established prisons.
A.
B.
III. With all the pressure to incorporate alternative sanctions within the guideline of sentencing Maryland’s use of implementing these alternative sanctions has reduced the annual cost to house an inmate from $20,000 a year to just 4,000 a year(Lozowski).
A. Community Options...