The Retort

Prison Reform

November 20th, 2009 by Nathan Morgan For The Retort

As Americans, we talk a great deal about liberty, but in practice, our country is not the land of the free. Our country is a land of chains and walls. Of all the countries in the world, the United States possesses the largest prison population with 2.3 million prisoners. Some prisons are overburdened by a prisoner population that is thirty-three percent higher than their capacity. Ten percent of the prison population is serving life sentences. Two-thirds of those serving life terms are black or Latino in ethnicity.

There are those who argue that these human beings deserve what they get. These people with hardened hearts argue that criminals can never change and these people would call for even stronger sentences than those already existing in our legal system.

I argue that we must soften our hearts for these imprisoned souls. If they are never given the chance to change, how can they change? Many enter prison and become even more self-destructive. Those criminals who are released from prison do not always escape the addiction, hate, fear, poverty, and crime that put them into prison. These things follow them out of prison and places them right back in. There are people in prison trying to make good, trying to change. But they are never given a real second chance.

The cure for our prison system lies in restorative justice, addiction treatment programs, job programs, and other alternative methods. These methods prevent past offenders from repeating their errors and create communities where people have real opportunities to succeed.