Prison ReformIn today's society, we are faced with many changes. Our family, our neighbors and our fellow citizens are afraid of the many dangers that affect their lives. Although many people have a fear that resonates in their consciousness and unconsciousness, the United States has a relatively low crime rate. Despite this low crime rate, America incarcerates its citizens five times the rate of Canada and seven times that of most European democracies. (Slambrouck, Paul. 24) Our society needs to be changed. We cannot blame the people involved in wrongdoing, but we can blame our society that has bred these criminals. Of course someone who kills another human being must be locked up in some way; but we need to make changes. We need to help as many misfit people as we can. There are a few steps that really seem to work. There are many prisoners who come from broken families and have low self-esteem. What needs to be done to help these insecure people, at war with themselves and with society, is to rehabilitate them. The problem is that prison officials do not try to teach prisoners how to learn from their mistakes. (McGovern, Celeste. 42) What actually happens is that criminals tend to be better thieves and have the ability to defeat the police. Our politicians must emphasize how important vocational, educational, drug treatment and religious programs are in order to improve the attitudes and behavior of these convicted criminals. This is the only way to keep ex-convicts out of prison. (DeLuca, HR 38) Another problem with the American prison system is overcrowding. There is a huge number of young delinquents without conscience entering prisons today. Imagine trying to compact eight gallons of water into a five gallon container... middle of paper... the takeaway is that our facilities should emulate Mckean Prison. Mckean inmates are denied freedom but have the ability to teach themselves skills, receive drug treatment, and encounter God. If we treat inmates like human beings, they will respond like human beings. We can no longer dehumanize them and expect our communities to benefit from them. It doesn't work. There is no need to build more prisons, it is necessary to reduce the rate of incarceration of non-violent offenders. These offenders may be doing community service and under house arrest where they still have the ability to keep their families together, so the vicious cycle does not continue. All I can stress is that our system needs reform soon. We can only prepare ourselves, society's ills have already created these predators. Therefore, we must promote new plans and theories on how we can shape tomorrow's flowers before they bloom.