What should we do with our criminals
What should we do with our criminals? It is a question that has been bothering our society for a long time. We have come up with many solutions but none seem to work. Many times we come up with the same solution over and over again. Other times we come up with new radical solutions. I am going to present many arguments on this process. Are prisons like resorts, should we turn alternatives, is imprisonment beneficial, or is capital punishment the way to go? Imagine you're sitting in a courtroom, where a murder trial has just taken place. The Judge says, " John Doe, you have been found guilty of murdering John Smith and Lisa Franks." Now comes the sentence. "I hereby sentence you to 4 years at the Utah County Resort. There, you've been forced to enjoy a life of fine dining and wines. You'll have access to the latest in computer technology, as well as libraries full of valuable material to assist you in completing your college degree. You'll enjoy state of the art entertainment with the latest movies, digital cable, and big screen TV's. You'll also enjoy 3 all you can eat meals a day, with your choice of dozens of beverages. You'll enjoy heated floors in the winter, air conditioning in the summer. No need to worry ab
Crime is the result of morally responsible people making wrong moral decisions, for which they must be held accountable. The just and necessary response to such behavior is punishment, which may include restitution for community service, stiff fines, or, in cases where the offender is a danger to society, prison. But let's not kid ourselves any longer. The prison was not designed to cure the individual; it was made to lock him up. An anti-death penalty protestor may claim that a major problem with capital punishment is the high price tag for the process of appeals and warrants that death row inmates go through. Many claim that the annual cost of a person on death row is higher than the cost of jailing that person for life. Meaning that capital punishment, when compared to life imprisonment, is very costly. These people are in fact correct when taken into consideration that our legal system forces endless appeals and stays of execution, only delaying the inevitable. Statistics 1997, the Bureau of Justice Statistics estimates the total cost for our judicial system for 1993. That year, the United States had 1,364,881 adult jail and prison inmates. Based on this information, the cost per inmate for corrections, judicial, legal, and police costs totaled $ 71,467 per inmate. That's about the same as the cost of sending a student to a four-year college. Because of overcrowding, it is estimated that more than ten billion dollars in construction is needed to create sufficient space for just the current prison population. How is Imprisonment beneficial? Who is the beneficiary? These are only some of the questions that come to my mind when you speak of America's Prisons. From some people's point of view imprisonment can be beneficial to everyone. It's true to say our prison system is not a full proof plan to keep America's worst off the streets but nothing is perfect in this world, but to some, the benefits of imprisonment far out ways the negative effects imprisonment has on our society. Let me ask you a question. What is the main goal of prisons in America today? I thought that a prison was created not to ensure a great life for the prisoner, but to keep them away from the public, and to persuade them to never want to commit a crime again. We have allowed the prison system of America to become a joke. It's high time we change the prison system of America and save millions of dollars, and decrease crime in America. Restitution offers the criminal a means to make a real change of character. Imprisonment alone cannot do this; nothing can destroy a man's intellect more surely than living without useful productive work and purpose. Restitution also provides an alternative to imprisonment for nonviolent criminals, reducing the need for taxpayers to continue building prisons. Working with the purpose of paying back their victim allows a criminal to understand and deal with the real consequences of his or her actions. Restitution would be far less expensive than the current system. The cost per prisoner can be as low as ten percent of that of incarceration, depending on the degree of supervision necessary. Removing nonviolent offenders from prison would relieve overcrowding thus, eliminating the necessity of appropriating billions in public funding for prison construction. By far the most common reason for exempting a person from trial on a capital crime, even when he is guilty, is his age. The standard Juvenile Court Law, prepared by the National Council on crime and Delinquency, prohibits execution of "any child under sixteen." This also gives jurisdiction to the regular adult criminal courts at their discretion to convict on a capital or a felony charge any person sixteen to eighteen. The big debate arising on this issue is whether or not these juveniles should be tried as adults and sentenced to
Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 2604
Approximate Pages = 10 (250 words per page double spaced)
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