Prison Expansion No Benefit to Society Essay - 2055 Words

No one likes seeing large imposing buildings with high brick walls and barbed wire topping them And behind those thick walls is another imposing building with small slivers crossed with large grates to let light in and men and women clothed in orange roaming the highly watched yard. They are imposing and daunting buildings, ones that would take away from a community’s attractiveness. But worse than seeing a new building like this one being built in one’s community, is seeing an already imposing building expanding into one’s neighborhood. These imposing buildings remind society that the world is not as safe as one would like to believe, that there are more than a few less than savory citizens in our midst. Expanding our nation’s†¦show more content†¦But much has changed since these days in the past. Prisons are now on more of a lockdown, or at least those deemed â€Å"dangerous† are. The prisoners are not allowed out of their rooms un less on chains or restrained in some other manner (Abramsky 75). Prison expansion will not benefit society. Expanding prisons will cost taxpayers more money, education, jobs, and not decrease the amount of crimes that occur. There is a link between education and crime. When funding for prisons increases, the funding for education decreases (Hawkins). The state and federal governments argue that either there will be tax increases or the money is to be cut from somewhere in order to fund the increasing number of convicts flowing into the prison system. The prison system has been growing since the system was created. And not only has the system grown, it has also increased in cost. â€Å"Over the past 15 years, government spending on prison construction has increased more than 600%† (Taylor 21). And that is just the construction of prisons, not the cost that each prisoner inflicts on the state each year. Each prisoner costs the state up to $25,000 a year, and with the number of prisoners on the rise, that number keeps multiplying (Imprisonment is Beneficial 26). Even when the crime rate decreases, states are still pumping money into the system. When crime started falling in the 1990s, states across the country kept pouringShow MoreRelatedSociological Perspective Of Punishment Is Economic Determinism And Class Interest1459 Words   |  6 Pagesinterest. Marxist see punishment in relation to the economic structure of society in which it takes place and to the class system, which as a result it promotes by penal practices and ideologies. In other words, the labour market has an impact on the choice of penal methods, and punishment serves the interest of the dominant class. 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