Incarceration Versus Rehabilitation

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The justice system; the United States of America utilizes the justice system to maximize the safety of civilians, but just how just is it? Many scholars among scholars agree, there are prevalent issues within the backbone of our country. There are countless issues, however, the seemingly more pressing ones are rehabilitation compared to punishment, racial prejudice, and wrongful incarceration.

Rehabilitation in comparison to punishment has been a discussion topic for several years. The discussion encompasses the true objective of incarceration. As always, if applicable, a judge will decide what is best for the specific case. The objective of rehabilitation is to correct the culprit’s wrong doings so that the event of them being a repeat offender
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Respective law enforcement might be approaching perpetrators with a preconceived bias that might be known to themselves. According to the sentencing project, African-American juveniles were much more likely to be incarcerated and tried as adults in conjunction with their caucasian counterparts. Hispanic juveniles were 61 % more likely to be incarcerated, and Indian juveniles were 3 times more likely. The FBI Unified Crime Reports state that POC only account for 30% of the United States population, however, they account for 70% of incarcerated persons according to the sentencing project. However, the FBI UCR states that white people were most likely to commit the violent crimes, a whopping 57%. It is important to keep in mind that FBI UCR only analyzes reports given to them by law enforcement, therefore the data does not account for all …show more content…
Let’s take a look; there are 21 states which currently do not have definite wrongful conviction statues, these are: Wyoming, South Dakota, South Carolina, Rhode Island, Pennsylvania, Oregon, North Dakota, New Mexico, Nevada, Minnesota, Michigan, Kentucky, Kansas, Indiana, Idaho, Hawaii, Georgia, Delaware, Arkansas, Arizona, and Alaska. However, for states that do repay the victims and compensate for lost time, such as Florida, they will provide $50,000 a year with a cap at $2,000,000. Expensive miscommunications. Furthermore, wrongful incarcerations account for people being ostracized from society and cause social skills deficiency.

The justice system is the backbone of the country, however nothing this great can come without flaws. Those flaws, as previously mentioned include rehabilitation vs punishment, racial preconceptions, and finally wrongful incarcerations. No system can be without its flaws, however, I would like to pose a question to you, the reader. How prevalent are these issues, are they something that we can sweep under the rug; or should we do something about it, if so what should we do? In conclusion, the justice system has been off to a great start, but will it have an explosive