Life sentence: how is reshaping the U.S.

READING REPORT 30


Source: http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/09/24/america/24life-globe.php
Date of publication: September 24,2007


Vocabulary: 1- Mandatory: required or obligatory.
2- Cleave: to split, divide.
3- Slash: to reduce drastically.
4- Hearing: an opportunity to be heard.
5- Momentum: impetus.
6- Hard-core: stubbornly resistant to change.
7- Blotch: a spot or blot; splotch.
8- Stark: complete or utter, extreme.
9- Ponder: to reflect on, meditate.
10- Expunge: to erase or strike out.


Main Ideas: - Some social scientists are saying that prison have a far deeper impact on the nation than simply punishing criminals.
- Sociologists see prison as mirrors of the social and economic differences that split American life.
- Men that get out from prison find it difficult to get a job or a good salary and even a wife. The penal system produces inequality especially for black men.
- The growing of the black prison population is eroding African-Americans’ confidence in the rule of law.
- The penal system was a marginal topic but now respected scholars are interested on the problem.
- The number of prisoners in America is greater than it is in Europe.
- Poverty is another consequence of imprisonment.
- In a experiment two ex prisoners one black and the other white were sent to find a job both with a similar résumé, the black man had more difficulties on finding a job.


Personal reaction: It seems contradictory that a man is sent to prison in order to be redeemed and when he has paid his debt to society finds it very hard to get a job. The system is wrong because it does not provide the correct tools for those people who are sent to the streets. Tools mean education or same kind of instruction to do a particular activity. Men realized from prison usually come back and commit the same or a worse crime, this happens because society excludes a man that has been in prison. This also brings difficulties to the maintenance of the ex convict family. Sometimes it is like the real sentence starts after they leave prison society forget that they need a new opportunity in order to make a progress.