The answer to the question might shock some of you, but if money is any indication of how much we value something, then it must be said that prisons are pretty important to us. At least, they’re more important that schools. That’s right, when it comes to funding, state governments are pretty consistently spending less on the education of their children and more on the incarceration of its felons. Now, maybe this doesn’t seem too skewed to some people. After all, I’m a bit of an education enthusiast and it is pretty important to keep the criminals off the streets so we don’t have to worry about our kids going to school. The fact is, if we spent more money trying to make our schools better and education better, there would be less crime.
It’s a pretty boldface statement to make, but there are a bunch of statistics that support this theory. For instance, “the lowest-performing schools tend to be in the areas where incarceration rates are the highest” and conversely areas where there are the highest-performing schools have really low crime rates (Hawkins). Literacy also plays a huge role in the likelihood that a person will end up in jail. The Department of Justice states, “The link between academic failure and delinquency, violence, and crime is welded to reading failure.” 70% of prisoners fall into the lowest two levels of reading proficiency. Records also show that if an inmate receives literacy help, he only has a 16% chance of returning to prison versus the 70% likelihood for those who don’t get any help. Mentoring and tutoring kids can also directly lead to a decrease in crime over time, which would be great since America is number one in the world when it comes to the amount of people we incarcerate. We beat out countries far more populated than us. (Previous statistics gotten here)
So, I’d argue that instead of funding criminals and paying jail wardens high salaries, we should share some of the wealth to teachers and principals and give the next generation a better chance at success. We should invest in our future a little bit more. The more money schools have, the more teachers they can hire and programs they can run and resources they can provide, which can help push us lower down on the crime list and further up the education list. To sum it all up is a fancy picture that really highlights some of what I’ve ranted about here with some additional jaw dropping statistics. Click to enlarge the picture.
Honestly, I think it’s a little wrong that we put more money into prisons as opposed to education. But, I want to pose the question to you guys: which is our greater civic duty? To apprehend criminals and make them pay for the wrongs or to stop crime before it can start and teach our kids the right behavior and stuff they need to know in order to be successful?
im changing my topic because this is not right snd not ool
It is such a crime that this is the case. I didn’t know the specific statistics behind this issue, but unfortunately, I cannot say that they surprise me. Our country is a very paranoid and a very pompous one. We aren’t actually number one at anything positive/ productive anymore (it’s usually number one in health problems or homicide rates, etc.).
We need to change that, and the way to change that is through education, I agree; however, there are plenty of people in this country who are opposed to subsidizing education, which is going to stall the entire effort. I would describe myself as a libertarian (one who is socially liberal and fiscally conservative), but subsidizing education is one of the most important things you can do: it’s one of the best investments you can make. It’s sad because if we want to maintain our prowess as a nation, we need to make sure that our future leaders are educated. That was the case 50 years ago, and we need to make sure that that is the case 50 years from now.
This post is very well written and extremely thought out. I liked that you brought in research to support your ideas. I really liked that you brought up the idea that putting the money into the education system would lead to less criminals. I agree with you and the statistics that you found. However, I am not sure if funding is going to change any time soon. I think that there our country and even just Pennsylvania have a lot of issues with budgeting. For there to be real changes, changes that everyday people, everyday schools and students will feel, will be a long time to come. I agree with the ideas you proposed, but worry that although many will agree with you, change will take a long time to implement.
This post has actually made me consider changing my topic for my Civic Issues blog because I found it so interesting. I have to admit, I did think your statement about there being less crime if we put more money into schools and education was a little bold at first, but then you used so many statistics to support it that, by the time I was done reading your post, it didn’t seem like an overly bold statement at all.
To answer your question, I think we need to be putting more money into education rather than prisons. I think you put it perfectly – we need to give future generations a better chance at success, rather than putting more money into prisons in case they fail. I understand that it’s important to fund prisons and apprehend criminals, but based on all of these statistics, it actually makes more sense economically to put more money into education. The more money put into education, the less money we’ll need to spend on prisons as the crime rate will decrease. It seems like a win-win situation to me.