Prison Life

Prison 2
Prison life in the United States is not the best life to have, even though it is a lot better than other countries.   Yes, you get free medical, free room and board, recreational activities, and in some cases free cable.   The question is would you feel safe in prison?   I know I wouldn’t.   No matter how tough a person maybe there is always someone tougher then you in prison.
In the United States we have the most prisons in the world.   We have to when 7 million people, or one in every 32 American adults, were either behind bars, on probation or on parole at the end of last year.   Of that total, 2.2 million were in prison or jail.   An amazing fact I found was, that the United States has 5 percent of the world's population and 25 percent of the world's incarcerated population.   This is pretty sad when you do the numbers it basically says that America is the crime capital of the world.  
When you think of the purpose of prison, what comes to mind? To some, it’s a melting pot of criminals and infidels not worthy to stay in society.   For some the purpose of prison is to protect society from criminals who intend to harm innocent civilians.   For others a prison's purpose is to rehabilitate convicts so they can become upstanding members of society, when released.   Still there are few people that believe that prison provides punishment for people who have committed crimes and therefore are paying their debt to society.  
Prison 3
There are a number of accepted reasons for the use of imprisonment.   However, the general purposes of imprisonment are, to deter those who would otherwise commit crimes (general deterrence) and to make it less likely that those who serve a prison sentence will commit crimes after their release (individual deterrence).   A second approach focuses on issuing punishment to, or obtaining retribution from, those who have committed serious crimes.   A third approach encourages the personal reform of those who are sent to prison.   Finally, in... [continues]

Read full essay