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The Pros And Cons Of The Incarceration System

1151 Words5 Pages

It has been drilled into our heads since childhood that criminals deserve harsh punishment, that they are subhuman and incapable of change. However, it is important to revisit our biases and how our authority exploits this prejudice to mistreat endangered groups in society. Justice should not be defined by punishment, but by rehabilitation and restoration. The criminal justice system should not be a tool of oppression, but a mechanism for healing and growth. Our incarceration system benefits neither the criminals nor the public, and only further oppresses and endangers our prisoners. In a world with a harsh power imbalance between the public society and the criminal justice system, it is not rare for innocent citizens to land in prison as the …show more content…

Taking a further look into the incarceration system we know today in America reveals layers of propaganda enforced by our government and drilled into our minds since birth. Contrary to popular belief, prisons—as we know them today—are unsuccessful in reducing crime rates. Liz Benecchi from the Harvard Political Review details the ineffectiveness of prisons for preventing crime rates, stating, “...76.6% of prisoners are rearrested within five years.” Prisons don’t keep criminals from committing crimes as they claim to: they’re just a penalization system. The way to keep the public more safe is not by locking away these threats for however many years until it’s time to release them, just to lock them back up again when they are inevitably rearrested; we should be pursuing a more humanitarian and efficient method of reentry to daily life that decreases the risk of recidivism. Rehabilitation rather than penalization analyzes the threat level of an inmate and treats the issues in their life or mental health that lead them to commit crimes. However, not only are prisons ineffective at controlling crime rates and public safety, they are also a danger to the inmates that are imprisoned

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