Pros And Cons Of Prisons

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Prisons and Second Chances In the U.S., 76.6% of prisoners are rearrested within the first five years after being released. Fellow Americans, the prison system in the U.S is not providing adequate help for prisoners to be ready to re-enter society. Once a prisoner is released, the prisoner may be a threat to others as they did not change throughout their time in prison. However, in other countries, such as Norway or Sweden, prisoners are given treatment to help them become functioning members of society. While prisons in the U.S. endorse criminals to keep away from society, others assert that prisons should be used to help criminals re-enter society and to prevent further crimes, such as some prisons in Europe . To begin with, prisons should be used to help criminals re-enter society by providing better staff in the prisons. In an article by Gerhard Ploeg, “Norway’s Prisons are Doing Something Right,” Ploeg states, “Prison officers go through two years of training, soon to be extended to three years. The curriculum consists of penitentiary training, but also subjects like psychology, sociology, law and social work, along with a large chunk of ethics and human rights.”(Ploeg 4). In other words, the prison guards in Norway are required to go through training to have their jobs and to help the inmates learn and become better people. Norway is not the only country to have these types of prisons; countries such as Sweden also have similar prisons. In the …show more content…
Guards should not only provide security to the inmates, but also help with the rehabilitation process and the environment in the prisons should be a safe place for the inmates to learn. In the future, U.S prisons should learn from these European prisons so maybe one day the 76.6% rearrest rate can become