Many people will tell you that prison systems are unfair and are not very democratic.They will also tell you that education and prisons connect in many ways. There are many reasons why people are placed into prisons, it could be from something as small as stealing from a store to a federal crime. Prisons are very necessary to keep our streets safe and clean. The problem is that I think people have forgotten the role of prisons. The role of a prison is to detain a person and punish them for a crime. At the same same time prison should be a place for someone to grow and want to do better. If the government where to put more money into schools and education, it would keep kids off the streets and in school. Americas priorities are not as straight as they should be.
One in every 10 young man are high school dropouts is in jail or juvenile detention, compared with one in 35 young male high school graduates, according to a new study of the effects of dropping out of school in an America where demand for low-skill workers is plunging. The majority of these dropouts are African American. One in four young black male dropouts are incarcerated. All together there is about 1.2 million kids who drop out of high school a year, that is about 7,000 a day. In the US those high school dropouts commit about 75% of the crimes committed.There are about 71,000 juveniles that are in prison. These kids drop out of school, they can’t get a job because they have no GED or diploma so they most likely have to turn to the streets to make money. These kids are joining gangs, or selling drugs. There are almost 15,000 children behind bars whose “most serious offense” wasn’t a crime.
In 2014 21% of the inmates that are in prison are ages 30 and below. Almost 50% of the people in prison due to a drug offense. There are about 700,000 people that are released from prison each year, but what are you supposed to do after prison? The expectation is for you to get out of prison and do better, get a job, go to school, and live a good life. This lifestyle is not available for all ex-inmates because most of the people while in prison loose the work ethic, and 40 percent of state and federal prisoners have neither a high school diploma nor GED (The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights/The Leadership Conference Education Fund. All rights reserved.) We do not offer these inmates a life after they get out of prison. When they get out of prison most likely they will not find a decent paying job because of their record. So when these prisoners are released we as a country are pretty much just throwing them back into the streets. Even if these prisoners where to find a nice paying job most likely what every they got into that go them in jail is going to follow them and force them back onto the streets.
As a democracy American citizens should be able to get a quality education. School is a and should always be the number one priority not just for children but for adults as well. We the people need to start standing up more and realize that the american government is not a real democracy, as a democracy we should be giving our children the chance to there future through education, but we can not do this when the funding is going else where, like prisons.When we are putting more money into prisons then we are schools it sends a message that the government thinks very low of the students.
In Pennsylvania the cost per inmate is about 43,000 dollars, When the cost per student is only about 15,000. How does it make any sense to spend more money on prisons? If we were to spend more money on education in schools, we would be able to provide the kids with the tools they need to learn. Thus, lowering the number of students that drop out every year. If we low the number of dropouts, the more kids we are allowing to get a diploma and get a good job, this keeps kids off the streets. The less kids we have on the street doing illegal things the less people go into prison and the less people that go into prison the less money we have to put into prisons every year. This is like a domino effect. Being on the streets sometimes is not a choice it is what you have to do to take care of your family, and that is reality. We could stop this if we just give these kids what is important, an education.Americas priorities are not as straight as they should be.