Prison Population In The United States

In discussion of the prison system of the U.S., one of the many controversial issues is the size of the prison population. According to statistics, although the U.S. has 5 percent of the world population, it includes 20 percent of its’ prisoners. On one hand, some people argue that there should be more people jailed. On the other hand, some contend that the prison population should be reduced. There are many factors to consider rather than simply jailing more people or not. These factors include, but are not limited to, the taxes citizens pay to maintain prisons, the crime rate in the U.S. and its connection to poverty, and most importantly education. These factors lead me to believe that arguing over whether or not to incarcerate more people is pointless, as neither would make sense. Instead, people need to understand the different factors that lead to the large prison population in the United States and figure out how to fix those problems. …show more content…
Education basically guides people down the right path and steers them away from committing crimes. In a recent study conducted by the Federal Bureau of Prison, they discovered that 48 percent of prisoners were serving time for drug offenses. Simply educating people about the harmful effects of drugs and why they shouldn’t get involved in distributing it would lead to a decrease in the number of prisoners. Education on drugs and other harmful things such as firearms isn’t the only type of education needed in order reduce the population. Education from pre-school all the way until college is even more important. According to a report that has been conducted by the National Academics of Science, in the time after the Civil War, more black men served time in prison than graduated from four-year college. This doesn’t mean that Black Americans are the only ones who are uneducated, but shows the need for more opportunities to get a good education. The educational standards vary tremendously throughout the United States. Implementing standardized testing hasn’t really made much of a difference. The reason why all this matters is that the education system, just like poverty, affects the size of the prison system tremendously. Studies have shown that those who drop out of high school are much more likely to be incarcerated than those with a high school diploma or a college degree. Blacks suffer the most with 37 of them who drop out ending up going to prison. The problem with the education system is that it does provide equal education for everyone across the country. Some school districts don’t get enough state funds or use those funds improperly (because they are given block grants allowing them to do what they want with the money) giving students in those school districts a poor quality of education. There is a direct correlation between the qualities of education school