The epidemic that plagues America today is not a flu. It is not a cold acquired from a passing stranger on the subway platform. It is not the chicken pox with a vaccine so easily constructed. Instead it is the subliminal messages, the, “If he hits you, you hit him back,” type of sickness. A child turns on a television to find a woman being murdered; he or she promptly changes the channel to a less threatening scene: two boys fighting. The American people are obsessed with all things gruesome, yet when a troubled person commits a crime, he or she is often shunned. Violence is okay to watch and to read about but it’s forbidden to occur, even in the crumbling homes of a drug addict abusing his or her children, or inside the pristine mansion where …show more content…
In fact, the prison population has continuously increased for the past 25 years (Wilper, et al.). This increase has led to prison overcrowding which jeopardizes the safety of prisoners. For example, even though the prison population in California has increased eightfold, no additional funding for prisoner services has been recorded. McCorkle’s study of a Tennessee prison found that 67% of prisoners stated they had to “get tough” while in prison or else they were at risk of being attacked from other prisoners. The prisoners become hypervigilant, leading to more aggression and a higher probability of becoming depressed (Haney). The risk of suicide in prison is eight times higher than outside of prison. There is a lack of healthcare for prisoners as well; they are four times more likely to develop life threatening illnesses in prison rather than outside (Wilper, et al.). Although Dorothea Dix improved conditions for mentally ill prisoners in the 1800s (Parry), 20% of prisoners today are still estimated to have mental illnesses because the government does not want to increase spending in prisons. For example, the Bush administration blocked the release of a surgeon’s report on prison conditions in fear that the government would have to increase prison funding (Wilper, et al.). Prison no longer achieves its goal anymore. It no longer reforms each and every of its inmates, and the government …show more content…
Children living in poverty have lower education attainment, increased school dropout, lowered IQs, increased behavior problems, and increased psychiatric disorders (Household Poverty And Nonfatal Violent Victimization, 2008–2012). Instead of punishing the poor, the United States government should try to provide better opportunities for these children because right now they are failing them. It is unethical to provide wealthier people with better schools and jobs. It leaves the impoverished to feel like poverty is all they will ever know. People living in poverty have double the rate of committing crimes than those who live in high income areas (Household Poverty And Nonfatal Violent Victimization, 2008–2012). This is not because they are terrible people destined to become criminals. It is because they grow up in a world the wealthy cannot imagine. It is so easy for someone who has never experienced poverty to say, “You make your own decisions,” because they fail to realize the impoverished do not have the same decisions as the wealthy. Their decisions are, “If you don’t steal the food, your children will starve.” They don’t have money to save. They live paycheck to paycheck. In a study, children who moved from impoverished areas to wealthy areas showed decreased psychiatric symptoms within four years (Freedman & Woods). Instead of continuing to throw low income people into