You know, I’ve always wondered about our prison system and the unfairness that it has to be upheld by the taxpayers money which could have very well been used for other more important infrastructure. The amount of money spent in maintaining the prison systems all over the world each year is staggering, and this is also kind of a funny fact because the prisons are basically nothing to write home about because of the gross neglect of human rights that go on there.
With all the money that is pumped into this industry, inmates are still not treated properly, human rights are violated with impunity, and hygiene is nothing to write home about… we can keep rattling off everything that is wrong with our prison system. However, because it’s a prison and deals with alleged lawbreakers, no one is really talking about it.
However though, I’m not here to talk about that particular fact either. More about how unfair it is to the taxpayers. The average taxpayer in the country is broke, or almost broke because they’re buried to their noses in taxes. They’re taxed on everything, on their salary, power, cars, air, water, and blood, even when they die, their loved ones will still pay a tax. Yet, a portion of that money goes into the rehabilitation of criminals.
What makes me talk about this? I recently saw this K-Drama called No Way Out whose basic idea is about a convicted felon who had a bounty placed on his head and the police were doing everything they could to protect him. This felon is a known criminal, convicted of murder and multiple rape incidents, yet, they were going above and beyond to protect him. One might say this is only a movie, but does it seem like something that can happen in real life? Yeah, it does.
Because whether you like it or not, everyone has rights. Even hardened criminals. It doesn’t matter if they’ve killed everyone in their community, they also have the right to live. And if they do get killed, so long as it was not done in self–defense, the person could very well go to prison for murder. So, even though they were a nuisance to the society, the same society gets to contribute money for their upkeep while in prison. It’s so unfair. It’s just like you sponsoring the lifestyle of a person who hurt your family. It’s not fair in any way.
But then, when you consider the fact that not everyone in prison actually belongs there, you realize that the system still has a long way to go because there are still so many things messed up about it. So many innocents are locked up for things they have no idea about or simply because some judge somewhere has not really had their time. This is sadly a phenomenon that is common to many nations of the world.
It’s not fair that the hardworking and honest taxpayers, have to bankroll the very people who terrorize the society. It’s still the same as bankrolling the very leaders who are leading their own nation to ruins. So, whatever frontier you’re on, you’re getting messed with. It’s not fair, but that’s just life because you can’t do anything about that. You could try not paying your taxes, but that will only send you to prison where you’ll join the rank of others who also benefit off the taxes of other hard-working civilians.
It is what it is.
