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Criminal Justice Issues

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Recommended: Prison Overcrowding in the United States

The US criminal justice system has significant issues and needs revising because over the past 40 years there has been a 500% increase in the incarceration rates all over the US. The people who make small mistakes become a slave to our criminal justice system because these people are thrown into a vicious cycle that they cannot get out of. People who commit these small municipal violations may not be able to afford to pay the fine landing them a spot in prison. Nothing is being done to help these convicts and after they are released so they often have to resort back to earlier crimes to sustain themselves and will typically end up back in prison. Once these people are out, it’s much more difficult to find a job, leading them back into this …show more content…

Prisoners walk out of the gates hoping for a “new life”, but the criminal justice system prevents that. These people have little to nothing, even less than they had before they ended up in prison. A man named Glenn Ford, who served 30 years appeared on Last Week Tonight with John Oliver to explain his story of being exonerated, “Glenn Ford was given a 20 dollar gift card the day he left Angola prison.” This 20 dollar gift card only lasted Glenn a single meal. Now think about this, Glenn was pardoned from his crimes and only received 20 dollars and was told this is a new start. This wasn’t a new start for him because that 's not even close to enough to be able to sustain himself. Prisoners should be given better benefits and especially the exonerated ones. The reason nearly 50% of people end up back in prison is because nothing is being done to help people who are newly released. They leave with only a small gift that won’t even last a day and are expected to be able to find jobs, but these jobs will rarely hire these ex-convicts. In fact, a lot of ex-convicts are banned from certain jobs making it even harder for them. Since these released prisoners are not able to find jobs, they have to resort back to previous crimes like dealing drugs to be able to sustain themselves in this “new life” as they become hungry and desperate. This is an endless cycle that you can’t break free from once the criminal justice system gets you in its

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