Dear future President,

My name is Jennifer and the topic I would like to talk about is mass incarceration. I’m concerned about this topic because the federal prison is overcrowded and becoming expensive for the country to keep up. I also feel that the correction officers inside the prison are too violent towards the inmates. Many people become more aggressive than they were before they entered prison, and this is not right nor fair. I don’t think it's necessarily fair.

My purpose of this topic is to decrease the number of prisoners and have some sentences be reduced for low-leveled prisoners. There should also be a reduction for prisoners who come back after a few years for the same crime. According to Mark A.R Kleiman who wrote an article on Vox, 60 percent of people who have been in prison and released end up coming back in a matter of years for the same crime. Prisoners aren’t learning a lot while being in prison about being release and how they shouldn’t keep doing what they came in for. This is why we should add education and socialization programs in order to help them when they go back into society. Most officials believe that they come back because of people that are doing crime outside can influence them.

My other purpose is that the prison is overcrowded and the state should start thinking about ways to reduce the numbers of inmates. According to Leon Neyfakyh who wrote an article for Slate, Officials are thinking about reducing the numbers of inmates by allowing them to leave prison early by going through rehabilitation programs right after. This way the prisoners can really get better and not have to go back to prison. It’s also good for the overall prison population because the numbers of inmates will decrease.

What I think the next president should do is to focus on trying to get the numbers of inmate in the federal prison reduced by releasing the people who have done their time and putting them in a rehabilitation program. I also feel like most prisoner are in prison because of their behavior and its not a reason to put someone in prison. The sentences should be less harsh.

Thank you for listening to me

Sincerely,

Concerned citizen