U.S. Prisons: Myth Vs. Mayhem

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?