Talk:Prison overcrowding in the United States

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This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 27 August 2018 and 7 December 2018. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Abeard3.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 02:42, 18 January 2022 (UTC)

Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment

This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 7 January 2019 and 21 March 2019. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): MTR34.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 02:42, 18 January 2022 (UTC)

Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment

This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 26 August 2019 and 9 December 2019. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Kiarra120. Peer reviewers: Brendanepton, EmeraldJ.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 02:42, 18 January 2022 (UTC)

Untitled

Wow. This page explains overcrowding (states the causes) without describing it. Someone needs to spend an afternoon digging out govt stats on % capacity different prisons are at, conditions, etc. and put it at the head of the article. Then account for it.

Some histories and works on current events aim at describing subjects objectively enough so that readers on all sides of the issues will use the work and completely enough so that readers can judge for themselves whether or not the explanations hold water.

Good luck with your entry. JohnintheBronx (talk) 06:04, 22 November 2012 (UTC)

Clearly this article has an agenda. Needs to be edited for NEUTRALITY... — Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.109.57.247 (talk) 21:52, 12 April 2013 (UTC)

I don't perceive any bias in the content of the article except for its focus on the prison overcrowding in the United States (which has the world's highest incarceration rate). What type of agenda do you perceive in this article? Jarble (talk) 00:35, 27 August 2013 (UTC)

Actually there is ENORMOUS bias in this article; it's just (slightly) masked. For instance: "Reduction in sentences given to those being sentenced to or already in prison, thereby releasing potentially dangerous offenders into society" was listed as a "risk of overcrowding" -- this is highly disingenuous, as reduction in sentences cannot be said to be an EFFECT of overcrowding at all. The "hazard that a potentially dangerous offender could be released into society and be able to do harm" was once again brought up under "Solutions" with NO citation or explanation of whether this is in fact a serious concern. Additionally, the ONLY THING listed under "Causes" was the sentence, "Big studies have shown that two types of offenders are responsible for the majority of sentences to prisons: drug offenders and recidivists." There are at least four ways in which this sentence is disingenuous: 1) It does not actually explain a cause of overcrowding. (It describes the general composition of prison sentences, nothing else.) 2) To the extent that it is supposed to imply (I assume) that an increase in offenses (rather than sentencing) is the cause of overcrowding, it is false. 3) It is THE ONLY cause listed, when overcrowding is understood to have many complex causes. This is highly topical, there's plenty of research out there. 4) Obviously, prisoners cannot be said to be "responsible" for sentences to prisons -- not their own and certainly not anyone else's. Yet in this sentence, individual prisoners are implicitly blamed not only for national and international prison overcrowding but also for the results of their court cases. As a final example, how about the discussion of some random article that recommended public flogging as an "American tradition" because it was endorsed by "all the presidents carved into Mount Rushmore and the Bible"? ...Do I need to say anything? That article got more space than all the causes of overcrowding combined and it literally sounded like the author had added it himself. (By the way, what makes flogging more of an American tradition than incarceration?) So yes, there is PERVASIVE bias in this article and it actually feels quite sinister! I will try to add fuller and transparent explanations and more responsible sources and citations, but in the meantime, I am just removing the really egregious parts. Elanae (talk) 18:10, 19 May 2014 (UTC)

@Elanae: The section about proposed solutions was added by User:Galaxy413, in this revision: [1] Jarble (talk) 04:16, 21 June 2015 (UTC)

A relevant question that could be answered in this article is: What are the alternatives to prison overcrowding? This article does an okay job in explaining my topic of interest, which is: the reduction of prison overcrowding, specifically its risks and ways we could solve this issue. It's a pretty short article, which I think is good because I'm able to add more relevant information to it. There's sections containing risks of prison overcrowding and the potential solutions to this problem, but there aren't many sources that were linked to back up the information. These sections could use more citations, because it appears to not be as reliable if the bulk of info given came from only 1 source. There are barely any links that I could use to seek further information about this topic, so I think there needs to be improvement in that area. I checked this Talk page and it was mentioned how this article needs to be able to describe the concept of prison overcrowding, rather than just explain it, which I also think is a great way of providing a better understanding of this topic. This article also seems a bit biased, in that it revolves around the perspective that prison overcrowding is a negative thing and it appears to be a bit opinion-based. Prison overcrowding should be approached on all sides, to give the audience a chance to decide for themselves whether this topic is a huge problem or not.--Kiarra120 (talk) 02:07, 3 November 2019 (UTC)

Article is very US-centric

I added the Globalise template to this article because I feel like this article is very focused on the topic as it pertains to the US specifically; the only non-US parts are part of the History section (even so, it only shows history that would be of interest as a predecessor of the US problem), and one paragraph about Egypt. I came to the article for more information upon finding the Tangerang prison fire article in the news section in the front page, only to find that this article provides very little global insight in the topic. The article even opens with language such as "federal prison populations", mention of "states", and "Justice Department", assuming that the reader is thinking only about the US. Hopefully someone with knowledge about this topic can provide insight; I personally don't know much about this topic so can't contribute much to it. T.c.w7468 (talk) 23:10, 15 September 2021 (UTC)

T.c.w7468, you are correct. Clearly the topic is Prison overcrowding in the United States, and I've renamed it per article title policy so it agrees with the topic. This leaves the more general title "Prison overcrowding" open for use as the title of a new article, and you or anyone else are welcome to create it, and cover the topic of worldwide prison overcrowding under that name. Thanks, Mathglot (talk) 02:54, 17 April 2024 (UTC)

Citation #6 is another Wikipedia article

As of 5/13/22: “"Three-strikes law", Wikipedia, 2019-01-03, retrieved 2019-02-13” 138.78.225.143 (talk) 03:03, 23 May 2022 (UTC)