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Pros And Cons Of Incarceration

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The United States of America is number one in the world at many things-- incarceration being one of them. The U.S currently has over 2.3 million people incarcerated, more than the eleven smallest U.S states combined. (Wagner np) While in prison, people do not have any access to the outside world, except for a couple televisions on select channels, family visits, and writing letters. Prisoners are also treated with heavy backlash, and often abuse, if they try to speak up about how they are living and being treated. This, by default, limits their freedom of speech, and even foreshadows how it will be if they are to ever get out. In most cases today, incarceration is more than a punishment for a crime-- it is a crime itself.

Depending on which state a person is arrested in, they may never have the right to vote again. For a non-violent offense, which make up over half of all inmates, this can be life-changing. Only two states allow people to vote from prison, Maine and Vermont. Fourteen states, along with the District of Columbia, restore voting rights to people when they are released, twenty restore voting rights after they have been released and served their parole/probation, and in ten states in America, you may lose your voting rights permanently. (ACLU np) Voting is a core method of exercising freedom of speech, therefore many Americans are outraged when they learn of how the rights are revoked for non-violent and even violent offenders alike. From cutting jail funding, to …show more content…

Mass incarceration is a controversial subject in the United States, but one that is slowly starting to pick up in conversations. Taking away voting rights is taking away a direct way to communicate and make decisions with a person’s freedom of speech. If the United States took a few tips from Norway on how a prison system should work, perhaps such problems and controversies would not

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