Punishment

Do we really punish criminals? Every year a portion of the taxes that are paid go to all of the jails and prisons across America. I have heard countless retellings of how bad prison life is but the truth is it isn’t and if it is they should have thought of that before committing a federal crime. At the prisons every person there is fed 3 square meals a day, most have a gym of some sort , and now a few of the prisons have television sets. Plus we can add on the fact they don’t have to pay a rent or house payment, utilities, and for the up keep of a home. In some cases the prison is a better life style than the one they lived in before committing the crime.

Crime

The crime rates in America are high and range from robbery to murder terroistic threat. Is our justice system under judging the situation at hand? Yes I will admit some of the crime rates in America have gone down but not enough. Our crime rates are extremely high compared to the rates of the past but if you notice our forms of punishment are less cruel. If we look back to the 1950’s and 1960’s of America they used the death penalty in the form of the Electric Chair, which would shock a person to death. And in my opinion make any person thinking of committing a crime think twice before committing it. Or we could look back even further back to the days of the west. And we could observe that even a person who stole a horse would be hanged to death. Versus America’s current death penalty of the injection. This injection is supposed to be completely painless, by shutting down all of the vital organs need. Till that person comes to meet death from this injection.

Evidence

If our justice system has the true intent of their claim then they would find the hard evidence that is called for in the court room. Just presenting information of their past cannot be the entire base of an accusation. When you are accusing a person of committing a crime no matter what that crime is, it’s a big deal. When a person is accused and convicted then our system needs to be 110% percent sure that, that person is the one who committed it. Once that person’s record has that on it, it can ruin a person’s life. Like when they try to get a job or anything else that might require a record. When evidence is presented there needs to be cold hard facts from not only the past but present times. Every piece of evidence found can either help or destroy a person.

Punishment

After that person is accused and found guilty if the case. What do we do with them? Lets say that the person or persons were found guilty for having illegal drugs and they were sent to jail for three months. Is that really going to do anything? To the criminal that is the equivalent of being smacked on the hand like a little kid and saying “Don’t do it again”. That’s going to do nothing to them, especially if they have been in jail multiply times for the same thing. But if the situation is more serious like if a man went and robbed a bank then killed someone. What do we do? A life sentence in America is 30 years with the possibility of parole and that man can get out early if he is on “good behavior” in that prison. This once again will probably do nothing to that man. My theory is if we use more cruel punishments then a person might think twice before committing a crime again if they get the chance. So if one man publically kills another and gets plain out hanged will the next criminal really go do something like that if they know what is going to happen to them.

Conclusion

What should we do? Should we continue with our ineffective ways or should take more drastic measures to the problem that lies at hand. As a whole we need to think of our country in 30 years and think about how much more easier we’ll be on our criminals and if that the direction we want our country to go as a whole. The death penalty already is very little used but how much less are we going to use, it was set up for a reason and we need to learn not to have sympathy for the criminals of America.