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Caging of America Article Essay

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Caging of America Article Essay
Upon reading Adam Gopnik’s “Caging of America”, I have understood his main point to be the over incarceration rate in the United States compared to any other place on earth along with explaining some causes and some solutions to this problem. Along with stating the fact that the U.S. has a substantially higher crime rate than any other place it can be compared to on the planet, he explains to us his opinion on the reason for this “peak” in the incarceration rate of our Nation. Towards the beginning of his article, Gopnik makes it clear that prison is not a place anyone would enjoy by making statements like “That’s why no one who has been inside a prison, if only for a day, can ever forget the feeling”. Later into his writing he reveals facts about the rapid growth of the National rate of incarceration starting with the numbers. According to the article, the number of incarcerated Americans per thousand has more than tripled since 1980; from 220 to 731. Along with that, atleast fifty thousand men wake up every morning in solitary confinement. Prisons are not the cheapest thing to run. Is that why the money that states spend on prisons has risen over six times the rate than that of spending on higher education?
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