by Andrew Smeja

Created on: November 18, 2009

What is the point of prison, if not to keep those of our society who are violent and uncontrollable away from those who are not? Keeping someone in prison costs a great deal of money believe it or not. They could die during their stay in prison without expensive healthcare. They need to be fed, housed, and we have to keep prisoners from escaping.

So it being established that prisons are expensive, why would you confine someone to prison if they were not going to be causing physical harm to others?

If a man commits a non-violent crime, why not let him continue to work his job and make him pay reparations, and force him to go to classes where they discuss in detail the costs of his crimes to the society that he lives in. If he chooses not to go to these classes we could make him pay a higher price for not attending. If he doesn't want to pay we could garnish his wages.

With our current governments policies, it is possible to make all but the most stubborn criminals pay for their actions monetarily, while still paying taxes and supporting our government. Would you rather they contribute nothing to society, so that they can spend their days sitting idly and watching time pass?

Prisons create something called "prison culture". Rules and laws that only apply to people while they are in prison, enforced only by other prisoners. These rules make it hard for people who have been to prison to adapt to the outside world. So many changes in technology and current events can happen over the course of a few years.

Many prisoners come out feeling lost, like the world left them behind. We as a society lose valuable members because we choose to incarcerate them for their poor choices. Instead we could let them make up for their poor choices.

We lose a lot of our tax revenue so that people who comitted non-violent crimes can be in jail. The solution that I propose would increase tax revenue and cut expenses. The money could be used for any number of things, at the very least it would give us a much better shot at balancing the budget.

So why are we keeping so many of these non-violent criminals in prison, what purpose does it serve? Prison is cruel and unusual punishment, this is a much better option.

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