Schools preach that “Anyone who has never made a mistake has never tried anything new.” (Albert Einstein) Yet, in the U.S., petty crimes committed by naive teenagers are ruthlessly cracked down upon by the judicial system, as thousands of adolescents are robbed of their futures. When President Nixon declared a war on drugs, his “...all-out offensive” strategy quadrupled the prison population by 2012. Resulting from a 6-8% increase in the prison population yearly from 1972 to 2000, the current inmate count reaches 2.5 million. One of the greatest problems facing Americans now is a flawed prison system which “institutionalizes” convicted felons, fails to successfully incorporate them into society, and has created an inherently unequal environment where, not even those who try to succeed, have the slimmest chance of prospering. Paralleling the current situation with Alan Paton’s Cry the Beloved Country, the repeated phrase “All roads lead to Johannesburg” (Paton 52) mirrors the current judicial system which has a 76.6% recidivism rate. Americans complain about spending billions of tax dollars funding a correctional system which institutionalizes inmates and leads to high rates of recidivism while continuing to alienate prior felons because of deeply rooted stigmas. Jails and prisons are formally called correctional facilities because their original aim has been to curb inmate behaviour and return them to society once they are no longer are dangerous. In reality, life outside of prison becomes so tough for former felons, that many return to prison within a couple of years of being released. This theme in society pops up everywhere. Directly comparing it to Paton’s Cry the Beloved Country, Gertrude may represent an inmate trapped behind Johannesburg’s “walls”. Even after she promises to Kumalo that she will become a nun, and Kumalo hands her over into the care of Mrs. Lithebe, Gertrude returns to her life of prostitution. She does this because it’s the only life she has ever known. In other cases, current practices just don’t work. PBS published a whole segment about the harm of solitary confinement to the mind. Professor Harlow’s experiment with Rhesus monkeys led to the monkeys rocking for hours and staring blankly into space after just a couple of days of solitary. Overall, many criminals are born into families living in neighborhoods where all they see is crime. Eventually, they themselves land up in the slammer and waste away during their young years. When the said prisoner gets out, he is “institutionalized” and either becomes another recidivism statistic, or fails in life continuing the poverty cycle in his family. So, one possible solution is to directly address community problems by funding “At Risk” programs so that we can stop cyclic criminal behaviour within poverty stricken areas. This leads to the next barrier inmates face; life after incarceration. The worst problem isn 't within the judicial system. Society has grown to alienate former felons. These stigmas might most be tied with our underlying assumption that the judicial system has failed to do its duty. I remember that a couple months ago, a registered sex offender moved into a house near Barrington, and within a couple of days there had been such an uproar that news teams were camped out on the person 's front porch. On a national scale, the simplest example is finding a job. According to the Bureau of Justice statistics, only
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taxpayers spend tens of billions of dollars a year on housing the ever-growing prison population. Instead of complaining about how dysfunctional the system has become and how we are wasting our money, we need to think about the solution. Just think, 46.4% of inmates have been convicted of some type of drug-related offense. That’s the price of the “War on Drugs”. Isn 't it absolutely ridiculous that we are overpopulating our facilities and wasting our finite resources in combatting a war we cannot win using these methods. There needs to be another way. That other way isn’t privatizing prisons. John Oliver pointed out that when these private corporations pitched to government officials, they boasted about high rates of recidivism off of which they make their money. Is it not counter-intuitive to hand over correctional facilities to people who use not correcting human behaviour as an argument for
taxpayers spend tens of billions of dollars a year on housing the ever-growing prison population. Instead of complaining about how dysfunctional the system has become and how we are wasting our money, we need to think about the solution. Just think, 46.4% of inmates have been convicted of some type of drug-related offense. That’s the price of the “War on Drugs”. Isn 't it absolutely ridiculous that we are overpopulating our facilities and wasting our finite resources in combatting a war we cannot win using these methods. There needs to be another way. That other way isn’t privatizing prisons. John Oliver pointed out that when these private corporations pitched to government officials, they boasted about high rates of recidivism off of which they make their money. Is it not counter-intuitive to hand over correctional facilities to people who use not correcting human behaviour as an argument for