II. THE PHILOSOPHY OF PRISONS
To begin with, in order to decipher the motivations on all sides, one must first look at the philosophical ideals behind these ideas. Although moral philosophy is part of a complicated whole, these abstract standards are what keeps humans from descending into the realm of the beasts. If we fail to have any ethical codes, then what keeps us from being the very same animals that we eat for food or keep for pets? When it comes to the perplexing state of the prison industry, the lines between helping and hurting people become muddled. Generally speaking, there have been many publications that examine different parts of moral philosophy, but fail to be specific enough.
However, Prisons and Prison Life: Costs and Consequences …show more content…
largely due to inflationary pressures, such as the increasing cost of healthcare, food, clothing, and utilities and the cost of hiring additional personnel to properly manage the inmate population”. Moreover, out of the 5.7 billion dollars distributed to these services, only 9.65% goes toward rehabilitative services. Considering that punishment isn’t as effective, perhaps more of the budget should be put towards rehabilative services so that recidivism rates can decrease. Moreover, the overpopulation is caused by “the federalization of crime[s]” that do not harm people such as prostitution or possessing marijuana. Making these once petty crimes carry longer sentences does nothing to help the overpopulation issue. Additionally, the main problems the budget is trying to tackle are: renegotiating contracts, reducing inmate sentences, corporate reorganization, and converting inmate files to electronic forms. With all of these factors considered, prison work was, and still is the prevailing …show more content…
However, in the end, rehabilitation should be the main goal of modern prison systems. Prisons were initially made in order to separate dangerous criminals from the rest of society. However, as time progressed to this day and age, the purpose of prisons shouldn’t be to simply punish. Especially with the steadily rising prison population, as a direct effect from the War on Drugs in the late twentieth century, the people that are in there aren’t all the dangerous criminals of the past. Now, it’s the mom that sells her body to feed her babies, the neighbor that sells marijuana to pay the bills, or the child that steals food to survive. Many of these people never made it through high school, let alone college. In today’s professional environment, obtaining a career under those pretenses is nearly impossible, especially if you come from a state of poverty. What state of freedom is