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Illiteracy In America Essay

600 Words3 Pages

Every day, every second, someone in America is committing a crime. With crime rate being so high, there has to be an underlying issue with these offenders. In 2006 over 72 million people were under some form of punishment including probation and parole. (US Department of Justice) 60% of prison inmates are functionally illiterate, which is a high number of individuals. Could you imagine not being able to read? In a world where reading is a necessity, it is our job to set up resources to help individuals learn to read and possibly decrease crime rate.
Crime isn’t something that will ever go away, but there are things we can do to help improve it. Illiteracy is the root issue to bigger problems, one of those problems being crime. Illiteracy is …show more content…

Since most children learn to read in school, we need to direct some of our attention on adult reading programs.. Even with the few programs I have found, many of them only focus on giving families books. This is a good idea, but it does not help if adults in the family cannot read.
Illiteracy is not always a choice. Adults who are illiterate face embarrassment or have come from illiterate backgrounds. According to Becky O’Dell, Executive Director of Community Literacy Centers, many adults feel, “ embarrassed about it and they think they’re the only one who cannot read. “ With that being said, I think adults could benefit from counselling services along with some of the reading programs mentioned above. Counselling could give adults the encouragement they need to start a reading program with confidence.
Since crime and literacy are linked, we should focus attention to incarcerated individuals. Records show, for many inmates with criminal records, a portion of their education was often obtained during incarceration. (National Center for Education Statistics) If we increase literacy in prison, we could cut back on the number of repeat offenders. Decreasing crime rate would not only help offenders, but taxpayers as well. It is necessary to give inmates resources to help them be successful in

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