America’s Justice System

Today there is approximately two million men, women, and children incarcerated in our country. A majority of these people have been sentenced to ridiculous periods of time. My husband is currently serving a 43 month prison term for failure to register as a sex offender. He has to register because he touched a girls butt when he was 14. Now you tell me how many male teenagers have touched a girls butt. He failed to register because he moved out of state to be a father to his children. This a ridiculous amount of time to be sentenced to. It currently costs the state $94.87 a day to house him. Which is approximately $2850 dollars a month and $ 122,550 for his entire sentence. In an economy like today’s we should not be wasting a hundred thousand dollars to jail someone trying to be a father especially when they haven’t done anything else wrong.

Today’s prison system is a joke and our country has the highest number of incarcerations a year. Doesn’t that mean we are doing something wrong? Or is America the breeding grounds for criminals? Our loved ones are treated horribly in prison. They get horrible food and health care. They are treated like horrible people and when it comes time for release they are just dumped on the streets. Sometimes they aren’t approved to go live with family or in the community where they committed their crime. They may not have family where they are approved to go live and with no support system how can we expect them to better their lives? Americas prison system and justice system needs to reform or we will all be footing the bill of incarcerating inmates that shouldn’t be incarcerated in the first place.