«Sending criminals to prison is not an effective punishment – they simply offend again as soon as they are released. Society needs to find more positive forms of rehabilitation» (Сочинения ЕГЭ английский язык)

It goes without saying that there are many different opinions on the best way to reduce crime. The traditional solution is to punish the criminals by putting them in prisons. However, some people tend to believe that education and job training are far more better solutions to cut the crime. From my point of view, prison can be an effective punishment only in a few situations, but in most cases rehabilitation, education and vocational training are more useful. And I have a number of reasons to think so.

To start with, the purpose of prison is to punish offenders and provide safety to the ordinary people who follow the law and do not commit any crimes.

There are many culprits who neglect other people’s lives and property, and thus, these criminals threat public order and the society in general. In addition, no one could deny that depriving criminals of liberty by holding them in prisons gives confidence that these people are no longer able to commit any crimes. More than that, the emotions and feelings of the victims and their families should be considered. In their opinions, the criminals have to be punished to pay the price for their guilt, instead of having education or vocational training because in this case imprisonment is the only solution to bring justice.

On the contrary, there are other types of criminals who, for instance, have not committed such serious crimes as murder or the act of terrorism. In fact, the majority of people are being arrested on suspicion of money laundering, bribery and corruption, tax evasion or credit card fraud. I am deeply convinced that under these circumstances, sentencing criminals to imprisonment is not the right decision to make. In fact, the prison stay may have negative effect to the impressionable minds of youngsters and repentance of adults.

To conclude, I would like to say that before deciding on whether the criminal should be kept in prison for his crimes or not, these people need to receive psychiatric help, and only then specialists and judge should reach a verdict, of course, according to the mental state of criminal, his reasons to commit this or that crime and the type of crime itself.