U.S. Prisons: Myth Vs. Mayhem
This article is about the prisons and
how they do not necessarily “punish” the inmates but in a way it encourages
their bad behavior and the expenses of keeping a prison going. When someone commits a crime they should
always be punished for what they do, even gang members. However there are some defaults to this including
the fact that they are encouraged to be violent and watch their backs
constantly while still having the intuition of becoming the so called alpha in
the prison. In a way it does not “punish”
them but it puts them in an environment in which they were already in. They have rival gangs in the prisons and are constantly
looking for a way to get to the enemy and kill them. To make a prison more successful I strongly
believe that any man or woman in prison should not be able to do anything
except eat sleep and exercise to their own will. Yes this seems harsh and inhumane but what
they did themselves was inhumane and thus should be punished for it. No books or any entertainment should be welcomed
in their cells. Prison is supposed to be
horrible, supposed to be a punishment, if we are allowing prisoners to have an
enjoyable life in there what would keep them from wanting to commit crimes?
Nothing. Men and woman become so attached
to prisons and enjoy them that they will actually commit a crime just to be in
a prison cell again. This sends all
kinds of red flags and it does not stop the crime or punish those who have committed
them. It’s as if we are rewarding these
offenders for their bad behavior.
Something I learned about this article that really stood out to me was
the amount of money we spend on prisoners.
One thing that I just can’t fathom is the fact that we are spending
thousands of dollars on prisoners who committed crimes. In my opinion, they are basically living a
free and careless life, all of their expenses paid which is just
sickening. Something that was mentioned
in this article that confused me was the fact that someone said that we should
put only the extremely dangerous people in the prisons. What makes someone
extremely dangerous? And are we to just let the people who aren’t as dangerous
roam the streets and commit the crimes that they have before with no
consequences?
