Prison Doesn't Work

Prison is supposed to be a place to help people. Teach prisoners ways to live that don’t involve hurting others. However, prisons haven’t been serving their purpose recently. Between the cruel and inhumane solitary confinement, the payments and discrimination they face when they get out, and the lack of courses they can take in prison, it makes it impossible for someone to fix a life. The current state of our prison system keeps the people we fear away from us, but it doesn’t rehabilitate them.

Removing criminals from society is just not working. In the last 40 years, there has been a 500%  increase of people in our jails. That causes overcrowding, financial problems with the state, and it has been proven that this is not helping public safety. The United States started jailing more people in 1982 because of the big drug war, and now we have approximately 2.2 million people in our jails. This number is going down but not as fast as it went up. Something clearly isn’t right(“Criminal Justice Facts”).

Solitary confinement doesn’t help people learn. According to The American Civil Liberties Union, “Solitary confinement is the practice of placing a person alone in a cell for 22 to 24 hours a day with little human  contact  or  interaction;  reduced  or  no  natural  light;  restriction  or  denial  of  reading material, television, radios, or other property; severe constraints on visitation.” In one case a twenty-two-year-old boy spent two years in solitary confinement while still trying to prove his innocence. The case against him was dropped, but the damage had already been done. He had tried to commit suicide around five times while in jail. When he was freed, he tried again three more times before he succeeded. The time he spent in solitary confinement gave him delusions and paranoia (Gonnerman). Approximately  80,000 prisoners are held in solitary, and thousands of them are children. It’s unacceptable that we do this because of its severe effect on the human mind (ACLU).

The other problem we have is our private prisons. Believe it or not, most prisons are owned by a company called Corrections Corporation of America or CCA (Larson). The private prisons will convince the state to sign a contract that makes it more difficult for them to set prisoners free because they have a fill quota. One year a prison in Arizona didn’t reach the 97 percent fill quota, and they fined the state $3,000,000 (Ortega). These private prisons earn their money by having prisoners, not helping them get out. Worst of all, they don’t care about the prisoners. Thomas W. Beasley, the chairman for CCA, was reported as saying, "you just sell

it (Prisons) you were selling cars or real estate or hamburgers"(Larson).

Another problem is the schooling system. Originally, prisoners had about 350 schooling choices. Now there are only 12, and the waiting list for the largest is over 10,000 people (Zoukis; Horwitz). Prisoners don’t learn enough to stay out of prison. About two-thirds of people in state prisons will re-offend (Horwitz). This isn’t what we want to accomplish. These people should learn how to stay out of prison, not get back in.

The last problem we have is the discrimination prisoners face. When prisoners get out of prison, they can be denied jobs, apartments, and brought back to jail if they don’t find these things. When prisoners leave, they also have to pay for their ankle bracelets, drug testing, and therapy (Stillman).  Also, when they apply for a job or an apartment, they have to answer the question if they’ve ever been convicted of a felony on most applications. This is incredibly unfair as they don’t ask of what crime. It could just be speeding tickets they couldn’t pay. Everyone deserves a fair chance at employment.

There are some arguments against many of these problems. The first is that prisons keeps us safe. Keeping these people far away from us is better for us. However, this only benefits us. The people in the prison can be kept in terrible conditions, like solitary confinement for years. Another is that the prisoners shouldn’t get a free education. A lot of people think prisoners don’t deserve a free education and should have to pay for it or not receive it at all. They say that tax payers’ money shouldn’t go into these programs (Henson). This money is actually well spent, as this is the best way to get these people back into the society. Lastly, people think they should have the right to know who committed a crime. People shouldn’t have to tell others personal details about themselves, especially if someone might discriminate against them because of it. If this is something the person must know, at least let them explain. Their lives shouldn’t revolve around whether an application has a certain box or not.

In conclusion, we need to fix our prison system. The cruelty involved is not something that should be allowed in our society, and we need to remove it. These people, despite what they did, are human beings and deserve to be treated as such. We need to fix our prison system, and we need to fix it soon. This problem won’t go away until we do something, and these people are depending on us to fix it. Prison doesn’t work.

Works Cited

ACLU. "The Dangerous Overuse of Solitary Confinement in the United States." American Civil Liberties Union. N.p., Aug. 2014. Web. 16 Dec. 2016.

"Criminal Justice Facts." The Sentencing Project. N.p., n.d. Web. 03 Jan. 2017.

Gonnerman, Jennifer. "Kalief Browder Learned How to Commit Suicide on Rikers." The New Yorker. N.p., 03 June 2016. Web. 16 Dec. 2016.

Henson, Kara. "Prison Inmates Shouldn’t Receive Free College Education."The Round Table. N.p., 9 Dec. 2009. Web. 06 Jan. 2017.

Horwitz, Sari Horwitz. "U.S. Official Says Prison System's Best Reentry Program Cut 'dramatically'" The Washington Post. WP Company, 29 Oct. 2015. Web. 05 Jan. 2017.

Larson, Erik. "Captive Company." Inc. N.p., 1 June 1998. Web. 4 Jan. 2017.

Ortega, Bob. "Arizona Prison Oversight Lacking for Private Facilities." Azcentral.com. N.p., 7 Aug. 2011. Web. 16 Dec. 2016.

Stillman, Sarah. "Get Out of Jail, Inc." The New Yorker. The New Yorker, 05 Oct. 2016. Web. 03 Jan. 2017.

Zoukis, Christopher. "Pell Grants for Prisoners: New Bill Restores Hope of Reinstating College Programs." Pell Grants for Prisoners: New Bill Restores Hope of Reinstating College Programs | Prison Legal News. Prison Legal News, Aug. 2015. Web. 03 Jan. 2