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  • Essay / Are our correctional facilities the funding problem?

    In today's society, we often have many suggestions that we make to solve problems that we may not understand. One particular issue we should focus on, in my opinion, is our correctional facilities. I believe the biggest issue when it comes to correctional facilities is the issue of funding. I believe if we increase funding for our correctional facilities, you will see better recovery for employees, rehabilitation for inmates, and a better quality of life. With underfunding of our correctional facilities, we are missing out on enormous opportunities. With less money, we lose many battles that can be solved by simply funding the facilities. According to a Channel 4 report in Oklahoma, they said that "with little funding, they used 40-year-old locks on the prison cells." » (Martin 2012). This is a problem not only faced by staff, but also by the community as well. From the same source, Director Martin declared that “the old locks posed a serious problem. An offender was able to manipulate the lock on his cell door and we had a policewoman working in the unit and he attacked her. He had made a few devices. The report did say it was a rape kit. (Martin 2012) This warden also mentioned that with the poor funding at his prison (Dick Connor), they are losing quality employees who want to work here due to budget cuts. He said in the interview that "if staffing levels continue to decline, the risks of inappropriate behavior by offenders certainly increase, which would include escape attempts." Public safety would be threatened.” (Martin 2012) this is just one example of why we should find a way to increase funding for correctional facilities or prisons. When...... middle of paper ...... the Rado prisons - to incarcerate an average daily population of 19,958 inhabitants - therefore amounted to 606.2 million dollars, of which 3.5 for One hundred percent were costs outside the correctional budget. This is alarming because we, the citizens of Colorado, pay $606.2 million. I believe the solutions are endless when you have all the money. Unfortunately, that's not what I'm getting at when I talk about increased funding for facilities. I believe that if we redirect budgets to other programs, we can fund more facilities across the country and reduce the number of people incarcerated. If we fund more things like this, it will also help reduce the national debt, because we won't be borrowing money from others. With the savings from the weaker population, we can then fund more things like education and healthcare. I think this is a particular way that we should look at.