A Stigma That Never Fades

"A Stigma That Never Fades" The Economist. The Economist. Print. 8 Aug. 2002.

The reading was mostly about the prison systems of the U.S.Throughout the text there were statistics and numbers about the number of prisoners and the rate at which they return to prison. According to the print, people that are released from prison are most likely to go back to prison because they are uneducated and some of them still have some sort of drug addiction.

"A survey of Californian inmates found that half were functionally illiterate. Prison could fix some of those social disadvantages; usually it does not. So the typical inmate is released from prison with all the problems he went in with- plus a prison record that makes finding a job or a place to live even harder."

I don't see how prison could help change social disadvantages for inmates. Unless prisons become somewhat like schools, most of the prisoners will go away uneducated and with the same problem. Prisons should have some sort of system where they can educated and rehabilitate inmates which are most likely to be released out into the world. A lot of times people are reintroduced to the streets, only to be locked back in. However, if the inmate had some rehab before being let free then he would probably be okay instead of returning to drugs and violence. According to a statistic in the text, treatment rather than incarceration would reduce serious crime 15 times more effectively. That to me is a strong statistic and we should focus more on fixing these people rather than putting them in time out. If the people that are released from prison at least know what to do in the real world, most would have the ambition to change their life compared to one who wasn't in rehab. I think most inmates should learn how to cope with their problems in the real world so when they are released, they at least have some minimal knowledge of what to do once they are out.