Essay on We Are Spending Too Much On Prisons - 1060 Words

We Are Spending Too Much On Prisons Would you believe that America has spent around five hundred billion dollars on prisons.(Butterfield) Why are the tax payers of America spending so much money on prisons and not other effective solutions to stopping crime? The American legislation is closed minded about reducing crime. They believe that prison is the one and only solution. Since crime keeps occurring, more and more prisons need to be built and kept running for the increasing numbers of inmates that are pouring into prisons. Prison may be part of the solution, but there are other alternatives to help criminals. If we were to incorporate facilities like drug rehabilitation and job training into the criminal justice system then†¦show more content†¦The average American sees the simple solution of more prisons to accommodate more convicts satisfactory.(Butterfield) If the American public could receive education on better treatments for prisoners I believe that they would want their money to go to better solution s that would keep prisoners out of prison and make the prisoners time served an educating experience. There are many other options besides prison to help reduce crime. A study was done on prevention versus prison, by Peter Greenwood of the Rand Corporation which investigated four prevention programs to see if they would help prisoners to learn morals and ways to live without crime, which would hopefully lead to not committing more crimes after they were released.(Butterfield) The program was called Head Start, a parent training program designed for 12 and 13 year olds, the program keeps high risk juveniles in high school. They found that these programs were twice or three times as cost effective as just putting people in prison.(Butterfield) Social programs like these can be applied to children as well as convicts and have similar positive effects to keep people out of prison for the long run. Research done by the National Criminal Justice Reference Service shows similar positive results to a drug treatment facility where prisoners wereShow MoreRelatedHow The Cuts Should Be Legal1713 Words   |  7 Pages Reduce Spending in California s prison system . 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