Ameriacas Failing Prison Systems
American citizens find one of their greatest injustices in their government’s constant abuse of tax money for a largely inefficient and ineffective prison system. ... “National statistics show that the rate of men returning to prison is as high as 70 to 80 percent” (Scott 2). Rather than focusing strictly on confinement, prison systems should use education and discipline to achieve rehabilitation. ... Analysis of 50 studies from 1958, involving nearly 350,000 offenders, showed that prison slightly elevated the risk for recidivism”(Birgden/Ore 1). America’s prison system obviously lacks the tools that it must attain in order to reverse the very intentions of the criminal to commit a crime. ... Up until the 1980’s prison education and rehabilitation programs were particularly affluent in the United States. Since the systems abandonment of these programs, the prison population has increased by 400 percent. ... This is utterly amazing considering America’s recent abandonment of prison counseling programs. ... Most importantly, the government must establish mental health courts to keep the mentally ill out of prison. ... As of December 1999, about 15 percent of the prison population had been placed in a psychiatric case management program”(Scott 2).