

The Criminal Justice System is a multifarious program of society that is generating many malicious effects that are going unnoticed to the general population of Americans.  The gears that make up this system rotate not only around simple criminal justice, but have stakes in multiple imperative factors of society.  A major one being the economy, and more specifically the money thrown away by the government as they continue to burn it in the furnace a broken system. This money is coming from the people, the common taxpayer, in which the sole purpose is to contribute funds for the government to provide beneficial services back to the society. However, the copious amount of money that is getting poured into the legal system is not proportionate to the positive outcomes. In simpler words, money is being wasted. This is money that could be going to healthcare, housing, education and other social programs. The most crucial of these is the United States' educational programs, or the lack there of in certain areas. Our Criminal Justice System is soaking up the funds that can be put towards reforming, improving and building better schools.  These improvements can clearly lead toward increased education which is correlated to improved neighborhoods and communities with less incarceration rates. Therefore, with less incarceration rates comes a decrease in the need of government spending toward holding inmates in prisons.  This is a chain reaction that has to be started by taking a closer look into the Criminal Justice System and alter the way these gears move. In sum, by reforming certain variables and methods of this system, the Unites States can make the first step to improving the economy while simultaneously creating stronger education and cultivating communities and neighborhoods. 

In plain terms, the state governments are spending an excessive amount of taxpayer's money funding prisons and jails.  As a result of this our economy is being crippled and getting drained of funds that could go to more efficient causes. Every single year the government spends almost 70 billion dollars to place adults in prisons and jails, retain the youth in detention centers and account for around 7 million people on probation and parole (Hawkins).  This is constricting the ability to push money towards other social programs as the budget for spending is finite. The population of inmates has grown exponentially throughout the years with no end in near sight.  In 1980 the number of inmates was 500,000, three decades later that number has soared to around 2.3 million people.  The United States only accounts for roughly five percent of the worlds population, however, it holds twenty-five percent of the world's prisoners (Hawkins). This is a proportional that is clearly detrimental to the economy, and a society as a whole. Thirty years ago in California, ten percent of the general fund was given to higher education, while three percent was provided for prisons. Currently, that number has changed to eleven and a half percent going to prisons opposed to seven and a half towards education. Spending forty-five percent more on prisons than education is a traveling down the wrong path for the future (Brodwin). There are too many people who are serving excessively long prison sentences for non violent crimes. In fact, the length of sentences has increased for all crimes over the years. Since 1990 all the way to 2009, property crime lengths have increased by twenty-five percent, and drug and violent crimes by thirty-seven percent (Mitchell, Leachman).  This accommodates partly for the increased rates of incarceration. As a result, people are kept out of the work force and instead of supporting the economy with their labor, it provides the opposite, and soaks money from taxpayer dollars.  Celia Chazelle provides insight on these long sentences by comparing them to other countries. She writes that "American prisoners now endure sentences twice those of the English, four times those of the Dutch, and five to ten times those of the French for the same crimes."  There are multiple different ways to start to fix this static issue. Give more sentences of community service, start to issue fines for first time, non violent crimes, and lower certain non violent sentences to fit the crime accordingly. Any reform effort must sort out the dangerous from those who do not pose much risk to the community (Lobuglio, Piehl). So instead of harboring these criminals in prison all the while feeding and clothing them, they are forced to give back to the community in appropriate amounts of service. Additionally, serving fines for simple offenses not only pours money straight to government, but keeps people out of jail and prison. There is a trade-off that is made between severity, and swiftness, and the United States leans on the side of severity.  However, providing consequences for law breakers and concentrating enforcement fewer people will be thrown in prison and crime can be reduced (Weissmuller). 

The major backlash that stems from the Criminal Justice System is the effect on education.  Education is the backbone to a country, and the most imperative program for youth. It provides a strong workforce, fuels the economy, and keeps a country competitive against the rest of the world. However, the fact that the justice system is continually taking up larger percentages of government spending that could be invested in education is an enormous problem. Higher education budget is the most vulnerable and most likely to be cut. Unfortunately, it's the investment that goes into education that can save money, improve communities, and keep people out of jail. This misinterpretation of national priorities is a key catalyst to the rising amount of prisoners being held. In addition, it is the lack of connection made between education and incarceration rates that is prolonging any fiscal changes. In Los Angeles, for example, 67 percent of low-performing schools are located in neighborhoods with the highest incarceration rates. Contrarily, 68 percent of the city's high-performing schools located in neighborhoods with the lowest incarceration rates (Hawkins). This evidence transparently shows the importance of prioritizing education over prisons. Another effect that comes from over funding jails and prisons is an increased price in tuition.  One can see the different outcomes based of the proportional of spending by comparing two states. Michigan, for example, imprisons fifty-one percent more of it's residents and spends more per prisoner than any of its neighbors. As a result, a four-year degree for an in-state student costs $38,215. Another state with a similar economy to Michigan is North Carolina, who prioritizes their spending much differently. They focus on investment in higher education which provides in-state students with a less costly four-year degree at $18,887 (Brodwin).  When these two budgets clash and fight for funding, the negative effects are noticeable. State's have to raise tuition prices in order to fill the gap in the education budget, which consequently leads to less people enrolling in college and graduation (Brodwin). The loss or decline of college graduates due to excessive prison funding is another example of how the economy is suffering due to the lack of efficient spending. In 2009, New Jersey spend $39,000 per year for every prisoner, which is more than tuition (Chazelle). The amount of money that is spent per year educating an elementary school student is less than the amount of spending for one inmate. The chart demonstrates the underlining problem that is the unjustified desire of state government to invest more into prisoners, than the future of the country in the education of 

children. The moment more money is focused on educating the youth and providing the best possible learning environment, than on incarcerating people and holding prisoners is when the economy and education will take a turn for the better. 

Education in the actual prison system in a program that is proven to work, but is also deprived of funding and lacks efficiency. Chazelle writes that most prisons do have educational programs, but they only reach a fraction of the inmates. Also, these programs only have one to three percent of the state's correctional budget which is unfairly low due to the promising improvements education makes. Once incarcerated in is not the easiest to be able to adapt back to everyday life, or avoid another arrest. However, the help of educational programs can not only ease this transition, but prevent recidivism, which is one's relapse into criminal behavior. "One study estimates it lessens recidivism by 29%. Another revealed a 44 percent drop in recidivism for inmates who earned college degrees. Another suggests that $962 spent on academic education for inmates saved $5306 in future criminal justice costs. Along the way, educational programs also reduce violence inside prisons, improving security for both inmates and staff" (Chazelle). The return on investment when committing to inmate education is over five to one. Increasing the size on funding for this program is an important block in ultimately ending such high costs for prisons and jails.

Another victim of the budget cuts of education are the communities and neighborhoods that need rebuilding and would greatly benefit from greater development and improved schools. It is these low income neighborhoods that have the highest incarceration rates.  As a result, more money has to go to the justice system to hold the high volume of incarcerations. Therefore, money for programs like education is cut because too much is needed to hold together all the inmates. This vicious circle finally ends at the inevitable increase of incarcerations again over time because the lack if higher education. Similar to Los Angeles, Philadelphia shows robust evidence showing the positive effects of high performing schools in regard to the incarceration rates of the areas. "Sixty-six percent of lower-performing schools are clustered in or very near neighborhoods with the highest rates of incarceration -- where the biggest taxpayer investment in imprisonment is being made. By contrast, 75 percent of Philadelphia's higher-performing schools are in neighborhoods with the lowest rates of incarceration" (Hawkins). It is easy to see the strong correlation between high performing school areas and incarceration rates, but instead of focusing the funding the make the schools higher performing, state governments are resorting to funding the outcome of poor educated areas which is inflated incarcerations. "If states were to properly invest in reopening schools, keeping quality teachers, maintaining sensible classroom sizes, and sustaining the affordability of higher education, it's quite possible -- particularly for economic crimes like low-level drug dealing -- we would not need to imprison so many people and could stop sinking our valuable taxpayer dollars into an investment that has demonstrated scant return" (Hawkins). This quote by Stevin Hawkins is another example of what needs to be done in order to start maximizing the potential of all of the citizen's tax money. There are significant costs that are carried along with these high rates of incarcerations. Those who have been convicted often find it hard to return to the job market to find steady employment and often lose a lot of skills are education during their time as well (Mitchell, Leachman).  The growth in government spending since 1986 to 2013 perfectly portrays the direction the country wants to strive to. Corrections spending has increased 141%, while K-12 education spending has increased 61%, and higher education has merely increased by 5.6% in that span (Mitchell, Leachman). 

Although the justice system through a fiscal standpoint is where most of the main problems are rooted from, there are other reforms that could be made to make the process more ethical. Adam Benforado writes about the many ways the methods that are used when incarcerated someone can be unjust and biased.  For example, tens of thousands of people are convicted based on police lineups, but research shows that an eye-witness chose an innocent person one third of the time (Benforado).  A lot of the the techniques that are used to prove guilt are based on human actions and belief, which can never be perfect, and are often times biased. Benforado suggests ideas in which these unethical convictions can be narrowed down. Some ways to eliminate this bias include blind experiments, and using professionals who don't have any stake or connection in the case to do the investigation (Benforado). Increasing the percentage of correct convictions is essential to the reliability of the criminal justice system. 

As with all topics of controversy, there are always advocates for different sides. There are people who worry about the appearance of toughness on crime, and the "law and order" hard conservatives that want to protect this. Also the presence of unions who want to protect the correctional workers and promote tough mandatory sentences and parole restrictions (Brodwin). But at what cost are the American people willing to sacrifice the education of its citizens and the quality of its communities for the plain appearance of toughness. The reforms that need to be made do not dissolve the toughness on crime and those who deserve the harshest punishment will receive it. Reetu Mody, who is a law student at Harvard, assumes that there is nothing wrong with the system, just that it is doing exactly what it was meant to do. This is referring to it as a purely racist system whose point is to target those of color. However, there are entirely to many confounding variables to be able to accurately make that statement. "But the system remains designed to disenfranchise, harm, and incarcerate people of color. That must change" (Mody). It is true that more people of color reside in certain communities that are low income with poorer performing schools. But statistics have proven that these communities of lower education is the reason for the higher incarcerations. Therefore, assuming the whole system is racist and dismantle it, looking for the areas that truly need reform in order to fix the discrimination and arrest rates of niche neighborhoods. With certain changes to this justice system, the money saved can go partly to improving juvenile programs. Some think that the violent criminal youth should be thrown in the adult prisons if there is space. Although this is the true in certain cases, once committing to this move will more the likely commit those to even more violence and anger where there's no hope to return to society. James C. Backstrom is a county attorney in Hastings, Minnesota and believes that the violent youth should be tried and sentenced as adults. The number of youth criminals have increased over the recent years and it is necessary to protect public safety (Backstrom). If we chose this way then we are conjoining these kids into the same broken system as adults, with a low percentage of real change in path. However, providing real education in these prisons and advanced juvenile facilities, less money can be tossed towards the people who would alternatively spend most of their lives eating off taxpayer's money in prison. 

The Criminal Justice System is complex in every fashion and revolves are countless ideologies and methods. This is part of the reason as to why reform is challenging to make, however it is absolutely necessary. This system is slashing our economy and damaging education across the nation. It is dangerous to sink more money and focus into the prison system, rather than improving education. Not only education though, but all other social program's funding percentages that are eaten away at by the justice system. Positive and forward changes will enable these social programs to thrive and spend state governments money in a way that increases the happiness and security of the people. Neighborhoods could thrive and grow next to higher performing schools, producing more college enrollees, ending in a skilled employee. At the same time scraping at extremely high incarceration rates among certain communities. The answer to help creating a solid economy and a strong education system nationwide lays in the proper reforms of our Criminal Justice System.

 

   
