
The Criminal Justice System is a multifarious program of society that is generating many malicious effects that are going unnoticed to the general American population.  The gears that make up this system rotate not only around simple criminal justice, but have stakes in multiple factors of society. These factors have a ripple effect, and brush against the lives of everybody in the United States. A major factor is 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. There has been no sign showing any drastic improvement or payoff for this investment since incarceration rates have been on a steady increase since the 1950's.  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 United States can make the first step in improving the economy while simultaneously creating stronger education and cultivating communities and neighborhoods. 

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. Each 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.  This is largely due to increasing sentence lengths given to criminals and the rise of low-income areas and schools where no improvements are being made. 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 proportion that is clearly detrimental to the economy, and a society as a whole. Thirty years ago in California, ten percent of the general fund were given to higher education, while three percent were 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 traveling down the wrong path for the future (Brodwin). If education has robust evidence that shows it lowers incarceration rates, why are we wasting money in the prison system if we can save it before people even land there? The money that gets invested into our educational systems will eventually save money from investment in our criminal system because we will be lowering the quantity we incarcerate further down the road.

There is another contributor to this downward spiral of false priority that retains in our state governments. Too many people are serving excessively long prison sentences for non violent crimes. In fact, the length of sentences has increased for all crimes over the years. From 1990 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, therefore saving more money that can go to education. There is a trade-off that is made between severity, and swiftness, and the United States leans on the side of severity. Mark Kleiman, a professor of public policy at the Luskin School of Public Affairs at the University of California, said that "If the criminal justice system were a parent, we'd call it abusive and neglectful." (Weissmueller). The current system does little to change the actual behavior of criminals, and punishes too severely and not swift enough. To further expand and understand on Kleiman's point, look at the basic institution of parole. The average parole sentence will lead to no punishment at all, but an occasional probation violation can lead to six months in prison. This is the best way to fill us prisons and waste more tax money in the process (Weissmueller). The length of sentences of certain crimes in regard to the severity of the crime is unjust. If the government truly wants to improve the efficiency of spending, then there needs to be more decisive, quick punishment for low level misdemeanors. The current process stretches too long and wastes too much money in the process for the purpose of incarcerated a non-violent, low crime offender.   If these small changes could be implemented, then the government can gain excess of spending while lowering the amount of people in prisons and jails. Education Secretary Arne Duncan says that by locking up less people who get arrested for non-violent crimes, it could save upwards of $15 billion a year that could be redirected to teachers and students (Lobosco).

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. This is partly due to the fact that many of the other social programs like Medicaid and pension contributions and growing, and politicians find it nearly impossible to make cuts in those programs (Lobosco). Unfortunately, it's the investment that goes into education that can save money, improve communities, and keep people out of jail. Eleven state lawmakers are spending more on prisons and jails than their public college (Lobosco).  Another reason that spending is cut more in education is that the decision ultimately falls in the hands of the state government, and not the Department of Education. 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.

To transparently show the correlation between education and incarceration we can take Los Angeles for an example, where 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 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, and 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, leading to lower graduation rates (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 spent $39,000 per year for every prisoner, which is more than an average college 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 below 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, rather than on incarcerating people and holding prisoners, is when the economy and education will take a turn for the better. 

This picture clearly shows the wide gap between focused funding between the two different groups. Some states have ratios of nearly six to one favoring inmate spending. This ratio is not the way the United States need to move towards the future. 

Education in the actual prison system is a program that is proven to work, but is also deprived of funding and lacks efficiency. This idea deviates from the simple clash of spending between education and prisons, and focuses on what the U.S is doing with the money actually invested in the justice system.  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 it, 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 $5,306 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.  This is another angle government needs to focus more on to truly improve incarceration rates.  Prison education is proven to help significantly, therefore only spending a marginal amount of funding that reaches such a small sample size is senseless. Increasing the size on funding for this program is an important block in ultimately ending such high costs for prisons and jails. The high costs would be cut from the decreased recidivism rate and the return on investment by educated prisoners to stay out of jail and adapt back to basic society. 

Another victim of the budget cuts of education are the communities and neighborhoods that need rebuilding, which would greatly benefit from further 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 to improving these schools, 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 many skills from their education during their time as well (Mitchell, Leachman).  The growth in government spending since 1986 to 2013 perfectly portrays the direction the country needs to avoid going. 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). The statistics that correlate lower incarceration rates with higher performing schools show that this growth of spending by the government is without any justification. Education is proven, almost to a science, to lower the amount of citizens being thrown behind bars. Therefore, if the government can create more more developed areas with stronger educational systems, the outcome benefits everybody. But how can the government create more areas with high performing schools? The answer to this question is of the simplest grade, by investing in them. Government needs to alter this proportion of spending before any true progress can be made.

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 how the methods that are used when incarcerating 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 chooses 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. This is a less significant topic in the greater scheme of the cracks in the Criminal Justice System, but still has a large impact. If we can narrow down the mistakes and bias that is retained in the system, its another step toward further improvement of efficient spending in the 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 lower income with poorer performing schools, but statistics have proven that these communities of lower education is the reason for the higher incarcerations, not purely their ethnicity. Changing states' investment strategy will be able to prove that it is these communities, not race, that are the main contributor to high incarcerations.

The Criminal Justice System is complex in every fashion and revolves around countless ideologies and methods. This is part of the reason why reform is challenging to achieve, 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 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 skilled employees. 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.

