All That is Wrong with Incarceration

My dad is an attorney, and realized very soon after getting his law degree that he regretted his decision to become an attorney. He realized that he didn’t like to lie, or twist the truth in order to help someone, who he knows is guilty, win. So my father decided to become a child-support lawyer and help mothers who aren’t getting child-support. He then realized that a great deal of the father’s who weren’t paying child-support, weren’t paying it because they couldn’t afford to do so. When this happens, the fathers are sent to jail. How does sending these fathers to jail help anyone? They certainly aren’t going to be able to get a job in order to pay their child-support when they are in jail. This is simply another example of what is wrong with our criminal justice and incarceration systems.

The article discussing prison health really got me thinking about all that is wrong with incarceration in our country. I remember reading in our intro to sociology class about how though the United States has less than 5% of the world’s population, we have 25% of the world’s prisoners. This statistic has always stuck with me and I just find it astounding. One of the most important reasons for why our prison health is so poor, is because there are just too many people in prison. There needs to be another method of justice that is superior in it’s ability to improve those that have committed crimes, not to put them into a worse position they were in before they committed their crime such as community service for lesser crimes.

 Another key issue that I find important is the attitude of law enforcement officers, in that they care most about their numbers and closing cases. This was shown in The Wire by the character Rawls. When NcNulty brought the Barksdale case to Rawls, he just wanted to finish the case as soon as possible, not spend quality time in order to ensure that the criminals were put away for their murders. If law enforcement officials cared more about what s ultimately best, and not for selfish reasons, our criminal justice system would be in much better shape and then would most likely be far less people in prison, especially those who are in for the wrong reasons.