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Recidivism In America's Prison System

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Recidivism In America's Prison System
America’s prison system is broken. The purpose of prison is to teach a lesson of wrongdoing. Taking away the freedoms of an individual is designed to change the behavior or at least that is the intention. However, America makes up 5% of the world population but 25% of the world’s prison population. The recidivism rate for federal prisons according to the United States Sentencing Commission is nearly half at 49.3% within 8 years of release (www.ussc.gov). That rate for state prisons is even higher 76.6% within 5 years of release according to National Institute of Justice (www.nij.gov). Tragically, the only lesson our current prison system is teaching offenders is how to become repeat offenders. These statistics are a horrible blemish on
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