Preview

Time To Invest In Schools Not Prisons Rhetorical Analysis

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
713 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Time To Invest In Schools Not Prisons Rhetorical Analysis
Shelby Koch
Mr. Fabian
English 10
18 December 2014
“Since the 1970s the rate of incarceration in the United States has quadrupled, after having been relatively flat over the prior half-century.”-Anthony Zurcher. The rate of prison incarcerations has increased so much over the years; the government can’t afford to incarcerate that many people. Karen Thomas’s article “Time to Invest in Schools, Note Prisons” shows that United States incarcerates too many criminals violent and non-violent. Joan Petersilia said in her article “Beyond the Prison Bubble” that, the United States has the highest incarceration rate of any free nation. This also supports the idea that The United States incarcerates too many people.
Karen Thomas’s article “Time to Invest in Schools, Not Prisons” shows that the United States is home to 5% of the world’s population but houses 25% of the world’s prisoners (314). This statistic shows that the United States incarcerates too many criminals,
…show more content…
The environment of being incarcerated really affects non-violent criminals in a negative way. When non-violent criminals enter the environment of violent convicts it tends to change them to being violent. Then when they get released they tend to go back to jail for a violent crime. Then after that nonviolent convict turns into a violent criminal it becomes harder to have a good public life. Just because you did time it becomes harder to apply for colleges or jobs, to get food stamps and even vote (Glazek p. 310). When you apply for a job it’s really hard to get a good job after you get released from jail, due to the fact that employers look at their record it is harder to find descent jobs. This means that if a parent for example just got out of jail and applied for a job it’s hard for them to provide sustenance for their

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Satisfactory Essays

    Essay On 13th Amendment

    • 334 Words
    • 2 Pages

    By directing more money into the prison industry, the state is teaching and funding the notion that in our society it is acceptable to value the reduction of “crime” by enslaving inmates than it is to support a child’s education, creativity, and future.…

    • 334 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    Cja/234 Sentencing Paper

    • 1495 Words
    • 6 Pages

    In the United States the number of criminals incarcerated in state and federal correctional systems has grown massively over the past several years. The number of those incarcerated has the greatest effect on state and federal correction systems. From 1930 to 1975 the average incarceration rate was 106 inmates per 100,000 adults in the population (Mackenzie, 2001). These numbers remained relatively stable until after 1975 (Mackenzie, 2001). By 1985 the rates were 202 per 100,000. By 1995 it was 411 and by 1997 it was 652 including local jail populations (Mackenzie, 2001). At the end of 1998 more than 1.3 million prisoners were under Federal or State jurisdiction (Mackenzie,…

    • 1495 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People website claims that “Today, the US is 5% of the World Population and has 25% of world prisoners.” In fact, the United States of America has the highest incarceration rate than any developed countries in the world. America puts herself to shame to the rest of the world, despite ironically calling her the Land of the Free. The phenomenon of “Prison Industrial Complex” can be traced back to the mid-1970s when the politics around prison had a complete transformation. Nelson Rockefeller, the governor of New York until 1973 who later served as the vice president under Gerald Ford, advocated for enhanced sentencing for drug dealers as a tactic to attract more voters.…

    • 1262 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    In society today, it is commonly known that crime rate has increased dramatically by the years. This is where many of us look for ways to solve such issue. It is the last place anybody would want to be in. but unfortunately we have hundreds of thousands of them, if not millions around the world. Thousands in just the United States, Those are prisons. Just hearing that word makes us think bad things right away. Murder, theft, violence, and everything bad that happens in this world. We live in a world where prisons and jail are very important and almost every country, state, county, or city must have at least one. Prisons now are much more crowded than they were 20 years ago. The number of inmates in just the United States has doubled between the years of 1992 and 2011. The question many of us should ask ourselves is why do we need prisons? Are prisons effective in any way? Are prisons causing economic issues? Are prisoners getting proper treatment while incarcerated?…

    • 1556 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Better Essays

    U.S. Prison Costs

    • 1619 Words
    • 7 Pages

    After reading the essay, “A Homemade Education,” an autobiography of Malcolm X, I became quite curious about how many dollars America spends toward the prison system and how it affects our society. The autobiography itself covers how Malcolm X gained a homemade education simply by reading books while serving time in prison. He claimed, “I don’t think anybody ever got more out of going to prison than I did…prison enabled me to study far more intensively…sometimes as much as fifteen hours a day” (35). There may be privileges of being sent to prison as one can sit and read books, but the cost of keeping prisons running outweighs the benefits. According to the article Pew Center, the United States has 5 percent of the world’s population and 23.6 percent of the world’s prison population. It has the highest documented incarceration rate and the largest prison population. Today, the annual cost to feed and house prisoners is now over $65 billion this year. Prison costs are now playing a major negative role in our nation. Prisons are plagued by fiscal problems as well as graying population; however, our educational system could be used as a preventive, and shortened terms could be offered as an incentive to motivated inmates.…

    • 1619 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    With the billions of dollars that they can provide to citizens, they chose to improvise the evasive people. Prisoners cost approximately $29,000 per inmate, and concludes towards most of food, clothing, and guards (Warren). Health care is not included, about ten-twelve percent of the state budget goes towards their well being. To construct a prison itself is expensive. Building twenty-five to fifty beds in only 800 prisons takes about five billion dollars. Maintenance is partial in the budget since prisoners obtain this job position with little wages. This is not the only cost. Parole and probation is granted for those who complete the sentence or for those who are recognized for good behavior. Just another cost, even if they are out. Education in prisons is also available. While in prison you can get your G.E.D, start vocational classes to learn a trade or even take college credit courses. Sounds too good to be true when education for the youth is lacking. Students receive insufficient amounts that does not cover what education really cost. Preparing a child to enter adulthood takes more than $9,683 dollars. America lacks governmental help with only twenty seven billion dollars spent towards schools. The consequences of this unattended matter has been overpopulation due to not building more schools and high drop out rates because with only one teacher per class, a student cannot receive the correct attention. The Academic Performance Index (API) is not an effective tool to evaluate how much money children and adolescences need in their school. Not giving schools money because of low test scores is not the solution. Everyone deserves to be given an opportunity of success. America needs to think twice before spending billions of dollars in prisons. It is time to recognize what education can do for the future and prioritize funds for…

    • 1989 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    Not only has mass incarceration contributed to the depletion of economic resources, but it has also not been proven as an effective means of lowering crime rates. Our current prison system is designed to spend massive amounts of money on warehousing and punishing criminal to then just place them back into society without any of the tools needed to become a constructive member of society, thus resulting in criminal behavior to reoccur. Multiple studies conducted have manifested that “rehabilitation programs, education, therapy, and vocational training have a profound effect on not only bettering the inmate as an overall individual, but on society as well” (….) because these offenders can now become productive citizens that can add to the community.…

    • 199 Words
    • 1 Page
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    Argument Essay Huck Finn

    • 1337 Words
    • 6 Pages

    Schools are built by the hundreds every year. Parents rely on the schooling and its staff to take care of their kids throughout the day while they are at work or are running errands. If you notice, however, schools have to practice lockdown drills every couple of months and now have to keep their inside classroom doors locked. Why do they do this? “Every time you stop a school, you will have to build a jail. What you gain at one end you lose at the other. It’s like feeding a dog on his own tail. It won’t fatten the dog” - Mark Twain. By the 1990's, the U.S. was opening, on average, one new prison or jail every week. Today, the United States has the largest prison population in the world and the highest incarceration rate in the world. It took America 160 years to incarcerate its first million people, but just twelve years to incarcerate the second million according to the Justice Policy Institute. These prisons are being built in urban areas in back fields with 24 hour surveillance. In these urban areas, families thrive and children attend school five out of seven days in a week.…

    • 1337 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    In, “Beyond the Prison Bubble,” published in the Wilson Quarterly in the winter 2011, Joan Petersilia shows different choices about the imprisonment systems. The United States has the highest incarceration rate of any free nation (para.1). The crime rate over a thirty year span had grown by five times since 1960 to 1990. There are more people of color or Hispanics in federal and state institutions then there are of any other nationality. The prison system is growing more than ever; the growth in twenty years has been about 21 new prisons. Mass imprisonment has reduced crime but, has not helped the inmate to gradually return back to society with skills or education. But the offenders leaving prison now are more likely to have fairly long criminal records, lengthy histories of alcohol and drug abuse, significant periods of unemployment and homelessness, and physical or mental disability (par.12).…

    • 259 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Best Essays

    Lowering Incarceration

    • 2094 Words
    • 9 Pages

    Over the past twenty to thirty years the United States incarceration rate has gradually been climbing to its present day rate of 738 incarcerated citizens per 100,000 in the population. That number is 153% higher than Russia who is 2nd in line with the most imprisoned citizens and a whopping 2000% higher than countries such as Nigeria and Nepal (Hartney 2). The problem with this nations incarceration rate is not due to the amount of crime that goes on, “For some crimes, the US has higher crime rates than other countries, but not at levels that explain the high rates—and costs—of its current use of incarceration” (Hartney 5). The United States is also at fault for having the highest minority incarceration rates having three times as many women imprisoned than any other nation. The minority problem doesn’t stop at the women but Latinos composed 19% of Americas prison population while African Americans make up 41% (“More”). The other potent issue with this problem is that it is not being considered as one and the rates are continuously growing. Jails…

    • 2094 Words
    • 9 Pages
    Best Essays
  • Good Essays

    The United States has less than five percent of the world’s population and over a quarter of the world’s prisoners (A. Liptak, 2008). Something about this doesn’t sit well with me and it never has. With 309,090,740 people in the United States it is hard to believe that 1 in every 100 American adults are currently behind bars and from 2006 to 2007, the prison population alone grew by 25,000 (A. Liptak, 2008). This does not include county jails. It costs the federal and state governments approximately $20,000 to $30,000 a year to incarcerate one offender. That means that if a convicted felon’s sentence is 10 years, it will cost the government at least $220,000. The estimated total annual cost of housing, feeding and providing services to all prisoners is $40 billion.…

    • 1065 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    Mass Incarceration A current topic that is currently facing our national government is mass incarceration, also known as mass imprisonment or the prison boom. What is important about this topic is that if we don’t figure out how to fix this problem, the population of those in prison will continue to rise. Those imprisoned are mainly made up of minorities, specifically African American men who live in poverty, non-wealthy and disadvantaged neighborhoods; the ghetto. Although the numbers of imprisonment have increased by fifty percent since the 1970’s, those may believe that there is less crime, although studies show contrary.…

    • 1139 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    Incarceration Prisons

    • 1114 Words
    • 5 Pages

    (Anderson, 2010). Our society is shaped to think, that all individuals with felonies are very deviant or bad people that don’t have the ability to change to become a better person and that they could contribute to society in a positive manner (Greene & Heilburn, 2011). These individuals made a mistake and they need a second chance to survive to become productive members of society. Some people believe in the belief in a just world, that good things happens to good people and bad things happen to bad people(Anderson, 2010), so they really don’t care about people with a…

    • 1114 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    One thing is clear - there are far too many people in American prisons. There are far too many 'criminals ' in prison despite the fact that they pose no significant threat to society. As a result - otherwise productive citizens are sitting in a jail cell costing taxpayers money to look after.…

    • 800 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    One thing is clear - there are far too many people in American prisons. There are far too many 'criminals ' in prison despite the fact that they pose no significant threat to society. As a result - otherwise productive citizens are sitting in a jail cell costing taxpayers money to look after.…

    • 1853 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Good Essays