“How often do you look at a man’s shoes?” is a famous quote from the novella Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption by Stephen King. The story depicts the life of an innocent man that get thrown into prison as he suffers through the corruption and abuse of the prison system. Andy Dufresne, the innocent clerk from Maine, escapes prison with a small pickaxe and lives the rest of his days carefree in Mexico. However, this is not the story of many prisoners in the United States. Despite what many politicians say about the benefits of more serve punishment will led to the determent of crime, evidence shows that a punishment oriented prison system is not effective in correcting prisoners in a cost effective manner. 

The main reason why prisons consume such a large amount of taxpayer dollars is because the U.S. has so many prisoners with very long sentences. But these people are criminals right? So they belong in jail? That’s not entirely true. Approximately 428,000 people are held in local jails for extended periods of time simply waiting for a long drawn out trial and on top of that the U.S. incarcerates 15,000 juveniles for “technical violations” which isn’t even a crime under the law. Furthermore we keep people incarcerated for decades for minor crimes such as drug possession and petty theft. The U.S. federal government is finally beginning to realize its mistakes and is pushing for short sentencing for specific crimes. But the current bills being passed doesn’t solve for severe sentencing for children who are tried as adults. There are cases in which a 13 year old boy have been tried as adult and have been sentenced to die in prison. There is something very wrong with leave children to waste away in prisons without a second chance. These examples are wrong in the sense that we are punishing people too severely and wasting money in the process because we spend $28,893.40 for each prisoner in a federal prison in just one year. This money adds up when there are no limits on sentencing for specific crimes.
   
The major focus of a prison is to correct and rehabilitate prisoners so they may re-enter society and benefit the country as a whole. In the United States approximately prisons release “688,000 people” each year. People in prison right now could be your neighbor tomorrow. So wouldn’t you want your neighbor to be fully rehabilitated and reiterated in society? However, 71% of prisoners in the U.S. that commit a serious crime return within 3 years. No matter what society attempts to attribute the blame for this return rate it is still a major failure of our prison system because it is not doing its one job. Instead of attempting to fix this problem, some politician advocate for longer sentencing and the use of capital punishment to put an end to the “war on crime”. But this form of rhetoric by politicians does not show that this “war on crime” is a war on actual people who do not need to fight a war but need help from the society around them. Also recent statistics show that longer sentencing had nearly no effect in 2000-2013. Not only has this idea not been working for the past 25 years but we have also spent $75,000,000 for a 71% failure rate. Sure, you cannot fix them all but this is absolutely unacceptable. People are finally beginning to see the failure of this system and have brought this to the attention of politicians. Through the passing of The Smarter Sentencing Act of 2013, sentences were made shorter and shifted the focus less on punishment. However, this simply isn’t enough to fix such a large and flawed system. People must push politicians to create more programs to help prisoner reintegrate into society. The current system has created a vicious cycle when once a person enters prison they never actually leave. 
   
Break the cycle.
   
Shift the billions the government is spending to keep prisoners locked up to giving them a life within society in which the can actually help the U.S. grow. Focus on fixing instability within prisoners and force prison the rehabilitate prisoners. Create job opportunities that will not discriminate against people with a criminal record and therefore making it easier for them to start a new life. Most importantly, we should focus on shifting the money towards education to prevent the next generation from becoming criminals by giving the opportunity to live a life worth living. Once when the federal government begins to do bring this solution into reality, we might have a chance at breaking the cycle.