James Kilgore's Understanding Mass Incarceration

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With the recent 2016 election, Hillary Clinton voiced her opinion on putting more money on ankle bracelets for low-level offenders as a solution to help reduce the bloated prison population. This solution, in theory, proposes the offenders to work, be with their loved ones, be able to be productive, and do their time without being in a prison (Shourd). According to James Kilgore, the author of Understanding Mass Incarceration, he agrees that being put in ankle bracelets is better than being put into prisons, but he responds again saying that it’s still not the answer. (qtd. In Shourd). Electronically monitoring has solved some of the problems that the solution set out for, but by solving those problems new ones appeared. By using ankle bracelets …show more content…

People have been trying their best to aid in their efforts by offering their ideas, but because of all the different views the government has nothing ever gets taken in. This shows that there is another way to go about solving this problem without gaining the approval of Congress, and that is making it so that the government is not involved in the process of fixing the problem of overpopulation in the prisons. Thoreau came up with the conclusion that the best government is the one “which governs not at all” (Thoreau). He then follows up saying that government is “at best but an expedient” but states most governments are “inexpedient” (Thoreau). The government has too much power which doesn’t give any left to the people to solve their problems, and it’s not like the legislature is getting anything done. So the only thing left to do is have all the officials back off, and let the people govern themselves. Jeremy Travis, the president of the John Jay College of Criminal Justice at the City University of New York says “Freedom is the best alternative to incarceration” (Shourd). The rules set in place in the U.S only cause problems, and lead to even the smallest offenses to be punished. Which then leads to incarcerating those offenders, and causing the overpopulation in prisons. If the government wasn’t making so many laws this problem wouldn’t exist in the first

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