Pros And Cons Of Prison Incarceration

America is no longer the land of the free. What was once a judicious and fair land has been shaped and eroded by neglect into a conglomeration that abuses many of its loyal citizens the second they step out of line. Either though a poor choice in a moment of desperation, or through pure bad luck those once loyal citizens that have become irrevocably branded as a criminal by the state are all but ensured that no matter what circumstances put them against the court they will suffer for it for the remainder of their lives. One would think that since America strives to be a model for the shape of the entire world that it would also have one of the best systems for dealing with criminals, when in fact it has one of the worst prison industries in

According to a report on criminal statistics, the estimated budget for the United States Prison incarceration system is over 39 billion dollars, with the U.S. spending on average approximately $170 per inmate per day that they are incarcerated (Smith). If one were to take the time to do the math then they would find that $170 dollars a day, every day, for a year is over $62,000 a year per inmate which is higher than both America’s expenditures on education and the median income of people in America. One striking point that can be inferred from this information is that taxpayers, at some point decided that because we so strongly desire that criminals are punished because of the harm that they caused, instead of seeing that they are helped to make better choices, we would rather lock away people for a minor crime for the rest of their life than educate the nation’s youth what is right before they turn to a life of criminal behavior to make ends meet, spending billions in the process. Furthermore the majority of prisoners that are currently incarcerated in the U.S. are serving long term sentences for nonviolent offences, of which according to writer Stephen Raphael, approximately 46% of prison populations were convicted and imprisoned based on drug charges (96). This information clearly shows that almost half of the people that the government is currently wasting money holding behind bars are only imprisoned due to a crime that only truly hurt themselves and has no real effect on society as a whole. Which is perplexing because it seems that instead of trying a simple fix to this situation; through the reclassification of drug and other self-abuse problems as a medical issue instead of a legal one and ensuring we are spending our money and effort on education and treatment instead, we would