Reduction of Inmate Privileges

In 1963, Hibbert surveyed the uneven progress made by the movement to reform prison conditions in the United States in the 19th and 20th centuries. He concluded that "conditions in many American gaols had improved little in more than a hundred years." The Wickersham Report in the 1920s stated that the prison system in the United States was "antiquated, unintelligent and frequently cruel and inhuman."

According to Hibbert, the basic impediment to prison reform was the widespread conviction of prison authorities and the public that "prisons should primarily be places of detention and punishment" and that "the reform of the criminal was considered of negligible importance compared with the protection of society." The impetus for reform gained momentum, especially after World War II, because of a combination of humanitarian considerations and studies showi

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1995, Zimmer sponsored legislation in the House of Representatives entitled the No Frills Prison Act and stated in sponsoring the bill (which did not pass) that "jails are places for punishment, not relaxation." Republican presidential candidate Phil Gramm said that "we've got to stop building prisons like Holiday Inns." The Rollback of Prisoner Privileges The onslaught on prisoner privileges has gathered momentum in the 1990s and shows no signs of abating. The specific measures adopted have varied from one jurisdiction to another. They include: (1) Doubling up of prisoners. In an effort to reduce operating costs, the State of New York has doubled up 810 of 20,000 cells in its maximum security prisons, which the state claims will save $100 million. (2) A number of states have eliminated prisoner owned property in cells, including computers, stereos, tape recorders and radios. The 1994 omnibus anti-crime act removed coffee pots and musical instruments from prison cells. A number of states have taken away body-building equipment, miniature golf courses, boxing and wrestling gyms, ice-cream and soda machines and cable TV. Some of them have ordered cut backs on foods which are considered more luxurious than those fed to GI
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Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 2202
Approximate Pages = 9 (250 words per page)

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