Courtney
1/24/13
English 101
Prison Reform

Richard Viguerie’s article on Prison Reform is spot on. All government programs should be the same including the criminal justice program. In this article Viguerie states that, “ the united states now has 5% of the world’s population, yet 25% of its prisoners and 1 in 33 people are in some sort of correctional control.” These statistics are overwhelmingly disturbing and it seems that some way or some how there is a way to decrease that percentage, especially since so much money is spent on the criminal justice program…. more than $50 billion to be exact. Viguerie also states that conservatives will have more credibility than liberals in addressing the prison reform, why is this? The government needs to find more cost effective ways for all government programs, just because we are spending more money doesn't mean that all these programs are working. Take for example when Viguerie states that, “ more than 40 percent of ex convicts return to prison within three years of release, and in some states more than 60%.” That is definitely not a good use of our hard earned money.

Prisoners don’t know how to lead normal lives when they get out of prison. They get fired from their jobs, or into some other kind of trouble that lands them right back into prison. In my opinion and many others im sure, this is not ok and there has to be a way to keep these former prisoners out of trouble. Im sure there is another way that we can go