Who Can We Blame?

As crime rates in our cities skyrocket, people’s faith in the American justice system plummets. Skeptics blame lax law enforcement, and think in the “once a crook, always a crook” mind frame. These are the people that for the most part believe that the system should come down harder on first time offenders, and even harder on re-offenders. Others leave the system’s theory of “punishment over rehabilitation” to blame. Is it really more effective to stone a man for falling then to help a man to his feet and advise him from falling again? Both arguments, though valid, could in reality be arguing all the wrong points. Is the justice system truly the man’s keeper? Or is the system merely dragged along as a scapegoat, to be fed to the dogs whenever man errs?
Statistics prove that over the last ten years, the number of inmates in prison rose 56.5% from 47,012 in June 1992 to 73,553 in June 2002. With these numbers running from one fiscal year to another, recidivism rates ...