Almost Done Essay

Submitted By shelbykochy44
Words: 511
Pages: 3

Shelby Koch
Mr. Fabian
English 10
18th December 2014
The U.S prisons and jails are holding 2.4 million inmates. But not all 2.4 million convicts should be in there. The United States incarcerates too many people for unnecessary reasons. A convict that has nonviolent charges shouldn’t be incarcerated with a murder/rapist. This causes more money that goes towards prison spending instead of education purposes. Christopher Glazek’s ‘Raise to the Crime Rate” really proves that prisoners are more likely to go back to jail for a more violent crime which means even more money that goes towards jails and prisons instead of education.
Karen Thomas’s article “Time to Invest in Schools, Not Prisons” shows that the United States is home to 5% of the world’s population but houses 25% of the world’s prisoners (314). This statistic shows that the United States incarcerates too many criminals, Karen Thomas also said “A quarter of the 2.4 million convicts that are imprisoned have been convicted of drug-related charges.” Instead of incarcerating that quarter of 2.4 million the United States should put them in rehabilitation centers. All of that money that is going to the convicts that should be in rehabilitation centers is getting taken away from education. Because there are so many incarcerations teachers are getting laid off, classes are being cut, and students are being turned away (Thomas p. 315). The United States needs to stop cutting education while increasing spending on the imprisonment of non-violent offenders. By using rehabilitation centers, drug abuse prevention, and treatment we can reduce the money that’s being spend and use towards education. Joan Petersilia said in her article “Beyond the Prison Bubble” that, the United States has the highest incarceration rate of any free nation. As a proportion of its population, the United States incarcerates five times more people than Britain, nine times more than Germany, and 12 times more than Japan (Petersilia 301). This really emphasizes that Unites States