Should Prison Be Prison?

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If you were to take a look at our prisons today, you would see that they are severely overcrowded. If there was a way that we could reduce the number of people that return to jail would you support this idea? Or would you say that it is a waste of time and money? One way of doing this would be start rehabilitating prisons so when they get out of jail, they can start contributing to society in a positive way. Currently there is more than 2.2 million people that are in prison in United States. Also the United States was one of the highest prison rates in the world. Most of the people that get arrested are brought to jail and are only there for a few years. What if we could do something about that and teach them as they come into the prison system and try to help them become a better person. If this happens, we may be able to break the cycle of repeat offenders that are coming back to jail once they get out. First people have to accept the idea that we have to put the time and effort into this in order to see a positive result. There are many different programs that are taking place in jails around the United States that are working well in reducing the number of inmates that come back to jail.
In New York the governor is taking a huge step in proposing that New York State should start funding college for prisoners. Even though that there are a lot of critics that have shot down the idea before he thinks it is a great idea to put into place. The way that the Governor is planning on paying for this is by using “7.5 million criminal forfeiture funds from Cyrus Vance Jr, the Manhattan district attorney, along with matching funds from private donors” (Papa, Anthony). They have done several studies and looked at other studies that have...

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...like taxpayers are paying for their whole education they are not. The prisoners are responsible for paying back the place that they got their education just like every person does. (Adams, Andrew)
Education in prisons has shown by many different studies that it is a good thing to implement in the prison system. The studies that prisoners are less likely to return to prison if they are giving some form of education. Which is a positive thing because if we reduce the number of people that are in prison we would save money that we could put elsewhere. Even though that these programs have been met with a lot of scrutiny they are showing that there is a lot of positive thing that can happen if you help prisoners get an education in prison. While they are in prison you have a chance to change someone life for the better. We just have to be will to put the money forward.

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