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Problems Of Prison Overcrowding In The United States

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Problems Of Prison Overcrowding In The United States
Prison Overcrowding Harms Everyone March 18, 2009
Com 220
Axia College of University of Phoenix

Did you know that the USA with 5% of the world's population has 25% of its prisoners, making it the world's no#1 jailer? The most recent statistics from the Department of Justice states that 1 out of every 30 men between the ages of 20 and 34 has been jailed. Most likely, every person in the USA has either been incarcerated or knows someone who was. At the start of 2008, 2,319,258 adults were being held in prison or jail and this number keeps growing. Because of the immense population of inmates, most facilities are overcrowded. To make room for all these inmates, correction departments
…show more content…
To incarcerate only California’s prisoners, it costs more than $7.6 million dollars a day. While funding for education and public assistance decreases, the prison budget maintains growth. One would think that for all the important resources we take money away from to invest in prisons, we would see some positive results, but unfortunately the USA has the highest crime rate in the world. Locking up so many people causes serious overcrowding problems making rehabilitation next to impossible. Overcrowded prisons harm the rest of the population by breaking apart families, spreading diseases, and wasting valuable resources on a system that is not reducing the crime rate. (Clark …show more content…
| The main point of the paper is the overcrowding of the prison system. | What is the greatest strength of this paper? | The greatest strength of this paper is all the information provided. The statistics give the reader a chance to actually absorb numbers. | What material does not seem to fit the main point of the paper or does not seem to be appropriate for the audience? | I think that all the information fit well into the paper. The statistics were there to represent the prisoners; you provided detailed information on what all the overcrowding did to the staff and others in the prison. You showed cause and affect of what the overcrowding did to the prison system. | Has the author sufficiently addressed counterarguments? Explain your answer. | I think the author sufficiently addressed the counterarguments represented in the paper. I would of like to of seen if there was any suggestions to fixing the problem though. | Where should the author add more details or examples? Explain your answer. | Suggestions on what they could do to fix the problem. Also a few updated statistics. The statistic from 1992 is little old. I would of liked to know if the prisoners are more alliterate now or then.

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