Nowadays most prisoners are sentenced to a prison stay.

This essay will first discuss the benefits and the

drawbacks of this method of dealing with criminals and then suggest several other ways to handle
crimes.

On the one hand, there are several reasons why prison stay is currently the most popular way to detain
those who have violated the law. First, prisons appeal greatly to the government due to their simplicity,
functionality and practicality. In most cases, prisons offer the most basic of necessity for inmates, such
as the need to eat, sleep, clean and exercise. The design of prisons is also very simple, which allows
them to be built and maintained easily, efficiently and most important inexpensively. In addition, the
prison model also benefits the citizens, as it provides them with an increased sense of security. As
inmates inside jails are isolated from the world, people outside are able to put them out of their mind
and no longer feel threatened, thus they feel more secured and safer.

On the other hand, the prison system has many dark aspects that are rarely discussed with the general
public. For starters, many contractors, who are those who run prisons for the government, neglect
inmates’ wellbeing in order to raise profits. There are many ways that the contractor can do to increase
their profits, such as overcrowding prisons for more subsidies from the governments, cutting down on
inmates’ diets, limiting their access to utilities such as water or internet…among others things.
Moreover, imprisonment of criminals can disproportionately affect individuals and households that are
in poverty. As many criminals come from socio-economically deprived backgrounds and are forced to
commit crimes to make a living, usually as the sole breadwinner for his/her family, the individual(s) or
households whose main earner was arrested must adjust to this severe loss of income, a radical change
that can be especially devastating in low-income countries, where the jobs may not pay enough for a
living.

Luckily, there are several probable alternatives to imprisonments. First there are community sanction or
service, which allows convicts to contribute, unpaid, to society as punishments for minor crimes.
Community service can include but is not limited to cleaning neighborhoods, removing vandalism or
decorating public spaces…Another prime candidate for replacement of the prison system would be
electronically supervised house imprisonment. This method, which calls for the convict to wear a collar
of sorts to track their activities, allows criminals to slowly reform and reinsert themselves into legal
society. This sentence however may also only be eligible for minor crimes in many parts of the world.

In conclusion, imprisonment is both appealing and unappealing at the same time. While there are some
possible alternatives to this method, they are currently only eligible for minor crimes and not capital
ones.