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The United Of Prison System

Decent Essays

The United States incarcerates more of its people than any other country in the world. Even though it makes up for 5% of the world’s population, it also makes up for 25% of all of the world’s prisoners, according to the International Centre for Prison Studies. The US has been ranked number one in a ranking of 221 countries who incarcerate the most out of every 100,000 of the national population. Out of every 100,000 Americans, 707 are incarcerated. That’s 10 times as many people as Norway, 15 times as Iceland, and 14 times as Japan. The United Sates prison system focuses on punishment rather than rehabilitation, which causes the recidivism rates to be extremely high. It has one of the highest rates in the world at a 76.6%, compared to Norway at the lowest rate of 20%. The system is so focused on punishing these individuals that it forgets they will one day go back into society. A report on recidivism in 2007 released by the US Department of Justice found that strict incarceration increases recidivism. Researchers in the National Institute of Justice found that within three years of release, about 67.8% of released prisoners were rearrested, and within five years of release 76.6 percent were rearrested, 56.7% of these individuals having been arrested their first year of release. Recidivism refers to a persons relapse into criminal behavior after serving a sentence and being punished. The US prison system is much less likely to rehabilitate their inmates. The American

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