Prison Problems in the U.S.

Money given to fund prisons is at a ridiculous amount and the money should be given to something in society that is more valuable. I was never aware of how much our citizens have to pay taxes for a place that was so negative in our communities. With this high amount of money going to a system that isn't working why would we continue to willing give out our money? In the article "U.S. Prisons: Myth Vs. Mayhem" he states, "American governments, from the federal level down, spend some $4 billion a year operating 4,700 penal institutions of all kinds. The cost of housing an inmate runs from less than $7,000 a year in Arkansas through $13,000 in California to more than $26,000 in the jail system of New York City,"(Frank Trippett). With giving all this money to contain harmful people there should be a result coming out of it; then our money would actually be worth spending. Money like this should be given to our public schools to give these children a healthy start to strive and become a good citizen. Young children in poverty has a high change to become the people that go into prisons since they never had a strong foundation growing up. If citizens gave this amount of money to public schooling then the problem of all these people going into jail from gang violence, drugs or abuse would actually have a chance to learn what is right from wrong and not go into jail. The high amounts to money that go into prisons should go to something more important like education to stop the process.