the big house

In society today, many people who enter our penitentiary system go right back to it. This shows how much the system doesn't work very well and there really aren't other alternatives. As sociologists we can look at our penitentiary system as a place where people are around their own kind and not many things change with the criminals. Punishable deviance is part of our society that won't go away because there will always be some people who are willing to deviate in a bad way, but also in a good way. I believe we should regulate punishable deviance by reaching criminals early on and helping them by either having them do community service or setting a guideline for their goals, so they won't have to do criminal acts in the future. When looking at our court and jail systems, it is apparent that people are easily sent to jail in many cases whether the person is a minor or even a small drug charge. The issue some have with our jail system is that it is a big part of our economy, and if there weren't many inmates, then the economy would fall. We need criminals in our society to keep things flowing, and that seems pretty unfair to people who have small acts of punishable deviance. Once the people are in jail, they just wait and are confined to a single area for years usually. This isn't much help because they aren't being taught how to better themselves, just to think, which is why so many people are going back after being let free.