Do The time, Lower The Crime by James Q. Wilson and...

Prison reform has been talked about since the late 1800’s and early 1900’s with the goal of giving prisoners better living conditions. Today’s issues involving prison reform have caused many debates on whether or not prisons should change their traditional ways and try to find a more suitable solution with prison related problems like overcrowded facility and huge sums of money being spent on these prisons. Two article that are going to be analyzed in this essay are entitled â€Å"Do the time, lower the crime† by James Q. Wilson and â€Å"Mandatory Minimum Drug Sentences Waste Resource† by Kevin Zeese. Both of these articles have opposite viewpoints toward prison reform. One side of the argument which is introduced in â€Å"Do the time, lower the crime†Ã¢â‚¬ ¦show more content†¦We see the author explain how minor offenders are hammered down with strict punishment instead of less time or maybe treatment. Another writer brings into conside ration treatment programs that can be put into place instead of excessive punishment to help offenders stay out of jail or prison and better their health. That author states in his article entitled â€Å"Do the time, lower the crime† that â€Å"within four years, according to a study by Professors Mark Kleiman of UCLA and Angela Hawken of pepperdine University, the violation rate among HOPE fell by 90%† (2). HOPE (Hawaii’s Opportunity for probations with Enforcement) is a treatment program in Honolulu that its objective is to keep offenders out of prison. Both of these authors bring up good points on why stricter prison sentencing is part of the problem and not the solution, but the author of â€Å"Mandatory Minimum Drug Sentences Waste Resource† only specifies in a certain demographic area by using New York City in his results. While the second article entitled â€Å"Do the time, lower the crime† gives people a better understanding of the solution available to help our prison problem. For example, implementing programs like HOPE could help our overcrowded prisons and might also help reduce our spending on prisons. These authors provide an insight to pro prison reform. Another problematic issue people argue about is that prison reform can help with the amount of money being wasted on prison facilities. The article