Price of a Sentence
...ilt to make more room for the growing population. Also, a new unit at the Mike Durfee State Prison in Springfield, SD was just completed in August, 2005 to house inmates. This has cost our state a large amount of money that could have been used in many other important places such as our public school systems and more programs for needy families. There are many alternative programs this money could go to if we could find a solution to prison overcrowding. While there may not be just one exact solution, there are several that could be incorporated to help this growing problem. Something that may help is increasing penalties for habitual offenders. A person that commits more than one felony, regardless of nature, should be labeled as a habitual offender. This would mean they would have additional time added to their sentence for committing a crime previously. Currently a person can commit up to five or six felonies before they are considered a habitual offender, and it is on a case to case basis. This punishment should be mandatory. This consistency would make someone less likely to commit another crime. Another area where penalties should be increased is for parole violators. If someone gets out of prison and violates their parole, it should be mandatory that they serve out the rest of their sentence in addition to the new time that they have earned. This would make a parolee less likely to re-offend. Another deterrent would be not allowing any children under the age of 16 in the prison for visits. This may sound cruel, however, when children are continually exposed to an environment; they tend to become comfortable in it. As these children become more comfortable in the prison, they view it as an acceptable living pattern. This is evident in several families in which several siblings or generations are incarcerated. It is known to the SDSP prison staff as “doing time on the family plan”. Also, if someone knows that they will not be permitted to see their children, they might think twice before committing a crime, thus, lowering new admissions to the facilities. This may especially make a difference in people committing crimes with lengthy sentences like drug crimes. Inmates that have been incarcerated for drug crimes currently make up a large percentage of the Department of Correction’s population are the people in their for People in prison for drug related charges, make up 26 percent of the prison population (http://www.state.sd.us/bfm/). Now there are many different types of drugs, but they all do have one thing in common: minimum sentencing. Minimum sentencing is a set of laws that were established in the 1980s during the Reagan administration’s “War on Drugs.” They were set up to be strict as a deterrent that obviously hasn’t worked. These sentences will vary depending on the drug type and amount. If someone commits any drug related offense, they will have to serve the minimum number of years, regardless of number of offenses. In theory, someone could get caught with marijuana and get more time in prison than a person who has seriously assaulted someone. According to a Senior Correctional Officer, South Dakota State Penitentiary; “Keeping some of these people that are in for drug charges, not up for parole, it forces us to parole some people that maybe should not be getting paroled just to make room. Drugs are a serious problem, but in the grand scheme of things they are minute compared to other issues”. Another important issue that should be addressed is deporting criminals that are here in the United States illegally or on a temporary visa. Currently if an illegal immigrant or a foreign visitor commits a crime, they serve there sentence here before being deported. If these people are to be deported anyway, it would make more sense to send them back to there home country instead of paying there living expenses. This would make a large diffe...