You can Judge a Society by how well it treats its Prisoners

You can Judge a Society by how well it treats its Prisoners Tristan Bourne Ms. Stewart 15 January 2015

Prison is for those who fail to abide by the laws that society lays out. Though the individuals fail to comply by the rules of being a member of society, they are still the responsibility of the government. Mass amounts of tax payer dollars go into maintaining prison facilities and making sure they have the necessary programing and resources they need to keep the risk of re-offense as minimal as possible. This is the case in Canada; however, other countries around the world have different views on how prisoners are to be treated. Canadian judicial systems focus on the rehabilitation of the countries offenders; this can be seen throughout the different variations of programs in the country’s prison facilities. These programs are present in order to help the offenders with issues they may have that lead them to offend. This is to ensure that they receive the treatment they need in order to once again become functioning and law abiding members of society. This says a lot about how Canada is governed; by the way Canada treats its prisoners, its simple to see that this is a country of forgiveness rather that punishment. Fyodor Dostoevsky once stated “You can judge a society by how well it treats its prisoners”. This statement is correct as it can be seen that there in fact is a correlation between how well governed a society is. Countries with similar incentives for their prisoners as Canada, such as Sweden and its other Scandinavian neighbours tend to be more peaceful and have better international relations throughout the world. The complete opposite can be said for those