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Bold Change In Our Criminal Justice System Essay

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Bernie Sanders had recently made a statement for all of America to hear: “Overall, we need bold change in our criminal justice system. A good first step forward is to start treating prisoners as human beings, not profiting from their incarceration. Our emphasis must be on rehabilitation, not incarceration and longer prison sentences.” I personally agree with this statement because our criminal justice system has some severe problems with it, it’s used for punitive reasons rather than rehabilitative. Prisons in the United States are tearing apart lives and increasing the rates of mental illness in our country. In this essay, I will be discussing the affects that this system has on our criminals and my theory on how it can be improved. First of all, instead of keeping our justice system as a punitive resource, it should be used to restore the delinquent’s morals and social …show more content…

This is due to the lack of help prisons offer the felons. Instead of helping the criminals, they place them into solitary confinement until it’s their time to discharge. However, according to the National Association of Drug Court Professionals, 85% of drug users return back to the drug life after they’ve been released from prisons. I think this is another consequence of not providing the person help. Some judges in court may suggest that the being attends drug counseling or rehab but 70% of the addicts who attend eventually drop out because they are not being supervised. It has been proven that 74% of these prisoners have the ideal thought, “once I am a criminal, I am always a criminal. There is no taking this back because what is done has been done.”, because of this thought they just eventually give up and do what they want. If these fellas were able to earn their individual rights back through getting help then maybe it would encourage them to work

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