Prison overcrowding is a major issue in virtually everystate and in many municipalities. This is a noted problem nationwide.The reasons are that judges are sentencing more offenders to jails andprisons. State and federal sentencing guidelines have prescribedspecific sentencing ranges for various types off offenders and offensescommitted. Inmate populations are increasing due to the number of repeatoffenders returning to our jails and prison systems. It is a documentedfact that at the local, state, and federal levels, prison and jailpopulations are at an all-time high. The research reported in theNational Institute of Justice supports these positions and has theappropriate documentation to support these notions. While there are agreat many research studies on the broad subject of prison overcrowding,making use of research findings can be a daunting task. You mustconsider the information needs of the various components of the criminaljustice system:

• Law Enforcement
• Courts
• Corrections
• Juvenile Justice
• Homeland Security

The various components of the criminal justice systemreally do not act independently of one another. The system is directlyimpacted by each component. For instance, when law enforcement arrestsmore individuals, the courts now have to hear and decide the cases,which impacts court dockets. Large court dockets mean that there is abacklog of cases but they are eventually heard and decided. Then,convicted offenders are given correctional sentences, ranging fromprobation, community service, and community corrections to jail andprison time. As a result, eventually our correctional institutions getfilled up and become highly overcrowded. In essence, each criminaljustice system component has a direct impact on the other parts of thesystem.

Tasks:

1. Locate at least two research articles on the topic of prison overcrowding from either the National Institute of Justice Data Collections or the National Criminal Justice Reference Service Databases. The studies do not necessarily have to agree on conclusions or recommendations.
2. Prepare a 3–4 page paper that includes asummary of the research articles and describes how you would presentthe findings of the studies for each of the five components of thecriminal justice system listed above.
3. Be sure to support your recommendations with authoritative sources and cite all references in the APA style.