Writing Competency Test

Our criminal justice system has been transformed into an unfair, unmoral bureaucracy-one that has given up on the very idea of justice. The system seems to be more inhumane than the so-called criminals who may or may not have committed a crime. The criminal justice system is just that, criminal.

A person’s social class should not determine who does or does not go to prison. People with money get good lawyers and a slap on the wrist while those without, get locked up for years while their freedom is dependent on a public defender to work and prove their innocence. The United States has the highest population of inmates than any other country. Is this because of financial incentives? I say yes. Millions are spent to keep our prisons full. “In the past two decades, the money that states spend on prisons has risen at six times the rate of spending on higher education” (Gopnik, Adam 73). So do we value our prison system more than the education of America? “A growing number of American prisons are now contracted out as for-profit businesses to for-profit companies. The companies are paid by the state, and their profit depends on spending as little as possible on the prisoners and the prisons” (Gopnik, Adam 74). This is how the “companies” are able to maintain and obtain new contracts. Their growth depends on it. This proves the unmoral side to our justice system. Now let’s talk about the inhumane side.

Inmates serving life sentences or one’s that are on death row, are locked up and forgotten about until they are allotted their “hour of solo exercise per day” (Gopnik, Adam 73). These inmates have “no attempts at rehabilitation and no educational or training programs are available” (Grann, David 19). They are “locked in small cells, where they see no one, and cannot freely read or write” (Gopnik, Adam 73). How is this humane? Imagine yourself locked in a small room for 23 hours a day, for just one day. How do you think the prisoners feel? How can we not...