The Pros And Cons Of Recidivism

Once someone is arrested and sent to prison, most of us think they have done their punishment and learned their lesson. Unfortunately, this is not the case most of the time. Once these inmates are released most of them end up re-offending and going back to prison, this is called recidivism. It looks follows the inmates three years after they are released and sees if they get reoffend and go back to prison with a new sentence. The Bureau of Justice did a survey to see how many offenders went back to prison after they were released. They followed 404,638 prisoners after they were released and within 3 years 68.7% of the prisoners were arrested again. Also, by the time 5 years passed from their release the percentage went up to 76.6%. (National Institute of Justice, “Recidivism”) What this data means

In other words, mandatory sentencing for repeating offenders that have not learned their lesson and also so they stop committing crimes in the street since they are imprisoned. What the law basically states is that if you are a felon that has two felonies in their record and gets charged with a third felony, you must received the maximum sentence for the type of felony. With this law follows a lot of controversy. Some people believe that it is too harsh and can ruin a person's life. Others believe it is well deserved as you get 3 chances to better yourself. There are many pros and cons resulting of this law. Some pros of the law is that it ends sentence disparity. Sentence disparity is when offenders are charged with the same crime and have similar arrest records but end up getting very different sentences. This is not only fair for all the offenders but also does not allow offender to get away with doing the minimum time allowed for the crime committed. Another pro is that it allows for easy crime control, what this means is