A constant issue here in the United States would be the problems we face in our prison system. Overcrowding, Gang activity, Health care, Mental health care, Racism, Assaults, and Privatization are just a few of the major problems facing prisons today. Many Americans believe our prison system is broken, while others believe the system is moving in the right direction. The three of the most heavily debated prison matters currently would be prison overcrowding, mentally ill inmates and private prisons. “The United States has the world's largest prison population, with nearly 2.3 million people currently living behind bars. We have half a million more prisoners than China, even though China has more than four times our overall population.” The Great Depression was one of the big events that led to an increase in crime and the start of our nation's prison overcrowding crisis. “Many of these crimes were classified as crimes of survival, meaning they were crimes committed in order to meet a basic standard of living, such as stealing food or providing fraudulent information in order to get a job.” Inmates were crowded into cells originally built for just one person. By the 1970s, conditions worsened. This marked President Nixon's War on Drugs. “The War on Drugs was followed by other 'get tough on crime' laws, like three strikes laws. These laws became popular in the 1990s and order mandatory life/ prison sentences for offenders convicted of three felonies. As a result of these measures, the United States saw a 500% increase in inmate population between 1970 and 1999. Our prisons became dangerously overcrowded, and some inmates began to fight back.” For example, California inmates filed multiple lawsuits and staged a lengthy hunger strike to protest overcrowding. California's prison population had grown to twice its designed capacity. The issue of caring for mentally ill inmates is another issue facing prisons today. This includes a wide range of mental health conditions, such as disorders that affect mood, thinking and/or behavior like depression, anxiety disorders, schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. Multiple researches show that more than “half of all inmates have mental health issues around 1.25 million prisoners suffer from mental illness. This is over four times the number in 1998.” For example, studies show that most mentally ill prisoners have only done minor crimes due to another big issue in the United States: Homelessness and lack of basic treatment and resources which really this means, these weren’t serious crimes because many were done just for survival.