Prisons: the problem or the solution?

Crime has existed since we as humans have. Through history, a broad and changing number of
acts have been considered crimes- adultery, treason or even witchcraft. The punishment for
them could vary from a death sentence to be locked up for a night in a cell, so in this aspect life
has not wavered significantly. However, considering today’s statistics about crime and the
outcomes of incarceration, can we asses that the cure has not been worse than the disease?

There is no doubt that some crimes must be severely punished- murderers, rapists or thieves
of valuable items need to spend part if not all their lives in prison. As extreme as it might
sound, a whole lifetime in prison or even their death would not be of enough console for their
victims. In addition, the little ones of our society ought to be aware of the consequences that
they would face if doing someone harm ever cross their minds.

Despite this, everything discussed before does not alter the fact that a leopard can not change
its spots, neither before nor behind bars. People who are criminals at heart are going to
continue committing unlawful acts whether they are free or not, and being surrounded by
these characters might affect those who have been incarcerated for a misdemeanour. That is
the main reason why some activists defend that only felonies should be punished with jail
time. This would prevent people who might have done something illegal due to their
atmosphere or to some financial struggles of becoming actual delinquents.

To conclude, depriving someone of their freedom will always be a hard decision to make, and
it should take a while to determine who really must be locked up- and whether that
incarceration will actually make our society better or not.