Prisons are rehabilitation institutions for individuals who have been put in custody by the court or criminals convicted of their crimes. Crime is committed daily, and those guilty are convicted in the courts of law. However, today state prisons have larger populations than they should. Penitentiaries are extremely overcrowded, which is contrary to the prison rules. The leading cause of overcrowding in prisons is sentencing offenders who have committed petty crimes.
To reduce overcrowding in the prisons, legislators should assess the prison conditions to see the high populations that are in the jails. By conducting an assessment, they get to learn the kind of laws they should make to reduce prison overcrowding. There is also a need for legislators to review some of the statutes regarding the punishment of offenders. Prisons are to be only for medium and high-risk offenders and not low-risk offenders.
Strict laws do not deter offenders from committing crimes. On the contrary, these laws accelerate the rate of offenses. Today because of the strict regulations, prison institutions are places where an offender learns new crimes. So a petty offender gets out and starts to commit a felony.
The citizens have a right to know what these strict laws are all about, whether these laws violate or promote human rights, so that they can act when the states come with laws against the rights of humans and prisoners. Furthermore, if the legislatures implement new regulations regarding imprisonment, then the prisons should hold a maximum of 70 percent of the capacity. It thus makes it efficient in the rehabilitation process of these offenders.
Legislators should monitor prison capacity to ensure that they do not exceed the required population. Therefore, it implies that the legislators have to decide how to punish petty offenders. These offenders deserve a community sentence, while offenders who have committed felonies deserve a prison sentence.