The Pros And Cons Of Prison Reform

It is no surprise that prison populations across the United States have heavily increased over the last couple of decades. With this heavy increase comes several different issues, such as overcrowding, more taxpayer money being spent on prisons and prisoners, and more people being placed in correctional facilities as employees. The major theme displayed by these different issues is money being spent to build prisons, house prisoners, and staff the prisons.

According to Merlo and Benekos (2000), prisons are becoming more overcrowded, and they are proving to be ineffective at reducing recidivism and the rate at which crimes are committed. Over time, these repeat offenders, as well as new offenders being introduced into the criminal justice system, have caused more prisons to be built and more correctional staff to be hired. These facts cause a strain on the economy, and without some type of intervention, they will cause major issues with the criminal justice system. According to Schmalleger and Smykla (2015), over 63
The issue with this is the fact that some prisoners who become model prisoners are still not released on parole. They do everything they are asked to do and they prove they are able to conduct themselves in a lawful manner, but some of them are left in prison. To me, parole should be abolished because there are many people being released that should not be. If someone is charged with a violent crime, they should serve the full sentence they are given. They proved they could not act like law abiding citizens, so they should not be allowed back into society until their sentence is up. The issue is not with parole; the issue is with sentencing. If everyone feels the sentences are too long for the crimes being comittted, then someone needs to change the sentencing