Jail

Reading the article about how many people we have in prison is shocking to me. The number is 2.3 million and the fact that the communist nation of china with a population that is 4 times greater than ours and almost a million people less behind bars should be a red flag to everyone. Our legal system focuses too much on punishing the people who commit the crimes and not enough on giving these people the help that they need. A drug addict will not miraculously become clean while in prison where it is still possible to get drugs. what they need is rehab and because they are not given this treatment a lot of the same people will end up back in jail because they have no money to get this help on their own. The average cost to keep one person in jail for one day is $90.28, with 2.3 million prisoners in America that is $207,644,000 spent A DAY on keeping the prisoners behind bars, most of them for drug charges. Would it really cost that much more to give them the help they require? This would ultimately cut down on second offenders which would be saving the tax payers money and more importantly, to some, saying these peoples lives.