Right now in the United States of America murderers, rapists, and child molesters are being set free. Prisoners are watching T.V., eating a meal, and using exercise equipment while law abiding citizens are starving and living in the gutters. Prisoners even have their own periodical. Dangerous criminals are walking the streets and crime is a way of life to many Americans. In America, crime does pay because our nations prison system is not working.
The nations prison system must be changed because of major problems with the system such as overcrowding and the fact that early release programs do not work. Building more jails is expensive and does not solve anything. These problems can be solved by giving prisoners no chance for parole and imprisoning only violent offenders. The non-violent offenders should enter a work program for the duration of their sentence.
Since 1980, jail and prison populations have grown by 172 percent(United States 11 Sept. 1994). Overcrowding is both inhumane to the prisoner and dangerous to the prison staff. When you put a lot of people, especially criminals, in close quarters tensions rise and the chance of a riot increases. If a riot occurs both prisoners and guards are put in danger. In Texas the jails are full. There is an estimated backlog of 29,000 state prisoners who are incarcerated in county jails awaiting new cells.(Brida 24 Nov. 1994) Texas is not the only state with overcrowding problems. For example, Ohios prison system is operating at 180 percent of capacity.(Varnam 16) Also, the federal prison system is 37 percent over-capacity(Clark 4 Feb. 1994). Statistics like this are found across the country.
Prisons should have two objectives; 1) keep dangerous criminals off the streets ...
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...ng more prisons cut the crime rate? The CQ Researcher 4 Feb. 1994URL:gopher://gopher.cqalert.com/0F1:25674:05CQR_FEBRUARY1994%20gopher.
Cunniff, Mark A. and Patrick A. Langan. Recidivism of Felons on Probation, 1986-89. 24 Nov. 1994(found) URL:gopher://justice2. usdoj.gov/00/ojp/bjs/13.
Prison Inmates To Work In Wildlife Management Areas.Associated Press 24 Nov. 1994(found) URL:gopher://gopher.cic.net/00/nircomm/ gopher/e-serials/general/education/univ-newspapers/daily- texan/today/94041507.s03_Prison.gz.
Sanchez , Edward J. Look Beyond Capital Punishment. 26 Nov. 1994 (found) URL:?.
United States. Department of Justice. Bureau of Justice Statistics. Probation And Parole Populations Reach New Highs. 11 Sept. 1994. URL:gopher://justice2.usdoj.gov/00/ojp/bjs/probpar.txt.
Voters Get Tough On Criminals. The Associated Press 9 Nov. 1994. URL:?.
make the most of what you’ve got in life and hold onto it because you
...Prison Overcrowding: California." ALEC: American Legislative Exchange Council. American Legislative Exchange Council. Retrieved October 13, 2013 from Organization of CDCR
Today, half of state prisoners are serving time for nonviolent crimes. Over half of federal prisoners are serving time for drug crimes. Mass incarceration seems to be extremely expensive and a waste of money. It is believed to be a massive failure. Increased punishments and jailing have been declining in effectiveness for more than thirty years. Violent crime rates fell by more than fifty percent between 1991 and 2013, while property crime declined by forty-six percent, according to FBI statistics. Yet between 1990 and 2009, the prison population in the U.S. more than doubled, jumping from 771,243 to over 1.6 million (Nadia Prupis, 2015). While jailing may have at first had a positive result on the crime rate, it has reached a point of being less and less worth all the effort. Income growth and an aging population each had a greater effect on the decline in national crime rates than jailing. Mass incarceration and tough-on-crime policies have had huge social and money-related consequences--from its eighty billion dollars per-year price tag to its many societal costs, including an increased risk of recidivism due to barbarous conditions in prison and a lack of after-release reintegration opportunities. The government needs to rethink their strategy and their policies that are bad
William Blake, was born in 1757 and died in 1827, created the poems “The Lamb,” “The Tyger,” and Proverbs of Hell. Blake grew up in a poor environment. He studied to become an Engraver and a professional artist. His engraving took part in the Romanticism era. The Romanticism is a movement that developed during the 18th and early 19th century as a reaction against the Restoration and Enlightenment periods focuses on logic and reason. Blake’s poetry would focus on imagination. When Blake created his work, it gained very little attention. Blake’s artistic and poetic vision consists in his creations. Blake was against the Church of England because he thought the doctrines were being misused as a form of social control, it meant the people were taught to be passively obedient and accept oppression, poverty, and inequality. In Blake’s poems “The Lamb,” “The Tyger,” and Proverbs of Hell, he shows that good requires evil in order to exist through imagery animals and man.
Overcrowding in our state and federal jails today has become a big issue. Back in the 20th century, prison rates in the U.S were fairly low. During the years later due to economic and political factors, that rate began to rise. According to the Bureau of justice statistics, the amount of people in prison went from 139 per 100,000 inmates to 502 per 100,000 inmates from 1980 to 2009. That is nearly 261%. Over 2.1 million Americans are incarcerated and 7.2 million are either incarcerated or under parole. According to these statistics, the U.S has 25% of the world’s prisoners. (Rick Wilson pg.1) Our prison systems simply have too many people. To try and help fix this problem, there needs to be shorter sentences for smaller crimes. Based on the many people in jail at the moment, funding for prison has dropped tremendously.
From the beginning of the Criminal Justice System, the obsession was with prison and punishment. In the last few years, this focus forced the jail and prison populations to skyrocket higher than any other place in the world. There is never a class we are not reminded there are currently 2.3 million people in United States prisons and jails. The criminal justice system or the correctional system has not changed yet remained its focus on deterrence and isolation not on the proactive ways of dealing with crime.
Today, almost 70% of all prisoners are serving time for nonviolent offenses. U.S. States are spending an average of $100 million per year on new prisons and all U.S. taxpayers front the bill for a system that is not working (Carson). Why should we force taxpayers to pay to keep nonviolent criminals sitting in prison cells where they become bitter, aggressive, and more likely to repeat their offenses when released? The answer is we shouldn’t, there are more reliable forms of punishment available, and rehabilitation and restitution are two alternatives I firmly believe are most effective than incarceration.
In this essay I am going to be looking at two poems from the Songs of innocence and experience works. These poems are The Lamb and The Tyger written by William Blake. Both these poems have many underlying meanings and are cryptic in ways and both poems are very different to each other. In this essay I will be analysing the two poems, showing my opinions of the underlying themes and backing them up with quotes from the poems. I will compare the poems looking at the similarities and differences between them and also look at each one individually focusing on the imagery, structure and the poetic devices William Blake has used. Firstly I will look at the Tyger a poem about experience.
In the essay "Prison "Reform" in America," Roger T. Pray points out the much attention that has been devoted to research to help prevent crimes. Showing criminals the errors of their ways not by brutal punishment, but by locking them up in the attempt to reform them. Robert Pray, who is a prison psychologist, is currently a researcher with the Utah Dept. of Corrections. He has seen what has become of our prison system and easily shows us that there is really no such thing as "Prison Reform"
Blake’s “The Lamb” effectively establishes the sublimity and innocence surrounding the concept of natural existence. In the poem, the speaker innocently poses the question of the lamb’s origin, suggesting the naivety and impeccability of the speaker’s actions later in the poem. Additionally, the speaker, referencing the lamb’s wool as it’s “clothing,” affirms his/her lack of worldly experience. By the end of the poem, the speaker acknowledges that it is a child, stating “I [he is] a child & thou [his companion is] a lamb” (Blake 17), further revealing Blake’s attempts to encompass the innocence of childhood in his poem and explaining the purpose of his utilization of the calming and simplistic tone that is present throughout the poem. The speaker’s absence of logic and knowledge parallels Rousseau’s statements in “A Discourse on Inequality,” which stated that “…the more discoveries we [mankind] make[s], the more we deprive ourselves of the means of making the most important of all” (Rousseau 43). As a result of these statements in both the poem and Rousseau’s A Discourse…, readers are exposed to an alternative, slightly pessimistic view of economic and techno...
There are several reasons why prisons overcrowd. One reason is because when offenders are released they commit another crime only to become incarcerated again. Inmates may also be sent back to prison for failure to complete community service. Another reason for overcrowding is tougher sentences. Offenders are receiving longer sentences for their crimes. They are facing harsher penalties for certain kinds of crimes, such as drug charges. Many offenders are forced to spend more time in prison after many states had the Truth in Sentencing Act passed, which requires that offenders serve the majority of their time incarcerated. It is becoming rare for offenders to get the option for parole. Overcrowded prisons are also less likely to help the prisoner to reform. Prisoners are having their rights infatuated from them by officials who are not pushing harder for improved prison
William Blake was born and raised in London from 1757 to 1827. Throughout his early years, Blake experienced many strange and unusual visions, claiming to have seen “angels and ghostly monks” (Moore). For those reasons, William Blake decided to write about mystical beings and Gods. Two examples of the poet expressing his point of view are seen in “The Tyger” and “The Lamb.” Both poems demonstrate how the world is and to sharpen one’s perception. People perceive the world in their own outlook, often times judging things before they even know the deeper meaning of its inner personification. Blake’s wondrous questions actually make an acceptable point because he questions whether God created the tiger with the same intentions as he did with the lamb.
Hirsch Jr., E.D. Innocence and Experience: An Introduction to Blake. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1964.
The `Songs of Experience' `Introduction' appears to be a lamentation concerning the demise of innocence, the gradual loss of nature through the corollary of experience. The persona cries `calling the lapsed soul', calling the `Earth, o Earth' to `return' from `the slumberous mass'. The Earth replies in `the Earth's answer' with the remark `break this heavy chain that does freeze my bones around' suggesting the coercive forces of industry and the artificial forces of man over the Earth, over nature. The `little girl' and `little boy' grow to be `lost' in this new world governed by industry, in this new world of mechanised Christendom, in this new world absolving itself of altruistic action and concern for the individual. The `lost' boy and girl make their way back to their instinctive origin and find solace in nature. The harmony of nature and its association with man is represented well in the first stanza of `Song [2]' of `the poetical sketches':
William Blake’s 1793 poem “The Tyger” has many interpretations, but its main purpose is to question God as a creator. Its poetic techniques generate a vivid picture that encourages the reader to see the Tyger as a horrifying and terrible being. The speaker addresses the question of whether or not the same God who made the lamb, a gentle creature, could have also formed the Tyger and all its darkness. This issue is addressed through many poetic devices including rhyme, repetition, allusion, and symbolism, all of which show up throughout the poem and are combined to create a strong image of the Tyger and a less than thorough interpretation of its maker.