Monday, March 10, 2008
Prison Nation
“More than 1 in 100 American adults are behind bars. One in nine black men, ages 20 to 34, are serving time, as are 1 in 36 adult Hispanic men.” This is how a quote about how prison and incarceration taking over our country. Many northern states are spending more on jail facilities than higher education and universities. More and more tax dollars are also being spent on this per year. The author says that the incarceration rates are going up, yet the crime rate has been declining. He proposes that less “low-risk” offenders be put on community service or house arrest instead of taking up jail space for the dangerous criminals. This article was very well written and researched. The author had lots of facts and statistics which kept e interested and he left me wanting to know more about the issue.
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4 comments:
This article does bring up an interesting problem we don't hear about too often. I would agree with the author's proposal on keeping "low-risk" offenders out of jail and focus tax dollars on more important things. I would rather my taxes be spent on fixing social security or educating our country's youth before it's used to keep a petty shoplifter behind bars for five years.
This argument is a very common one. I do not think that a deadly criminal is going to be kept out of jail because there is not enough room. The price of everything is going up. I do agree that tax dollars can be spent on more important things, but I don't think the author needs to trick me into thinking that.
Although I do agree that our jails are overcrowded, I also have never heard of anyone not being able to be fit into a jail. There are many factors for overcrowded jails; however, the "low-risk" offenders are subject to commit higher offenses-this is why they are sent to jail. Jail is supposed to be rehabilitating the individual. I believe this is where our system is flawed; however, some "low-risk" offenders should have never been sent to jail in the first place. Our court system does need to take some of the blame for "passing out" punishments. This is a very interesting controversial article, which seems to give a different solution to a well known problem.
It seems that the author did a good job of researching this subject. I think it is horrible that so many Americans are behind bars. Perhaps if people behind bars were educated, when they were released they would not go right back into prison. I wish the author would have included explanations as to why crime rates are decreasing, yet the number of poeple in jail is rising.
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