Which is the effective measure to decrease crime? Whether it is providing proper education to citizens or increasing the number of prisons in a nation?

It is an undeniable fact that jails are regarded as one of the best measures to reduce crime in several countries. However, education is considered as the most successful strategy to reduce crime.

To begin with, education inculcates moral values in an individual. In other words, people learn to respect the rights of others through education. To make it clear, it enables a person to think rationally and choose between rights and wrongs.  To exemplify it, schooling imparts knowledge about social life and importance of following rules in life and in society. Therefore, through education people can be taught about principles of life which enable them to be away from committing offences. To add further, education is the foundation stone of man making. In other words, it teaches morality, humanity, honesty and other features of right character. To explain it, education allows an individual to behave in a socially accepted manner in society. For example, people without childhood education at Syria follow terrorism, kill others and believe that they are executing the will of God and doing the right things. So, education has a major role in character formation which is one of the decisive traits that decides the actions of every individual.

On the contrary, keeping an individual in jail negatively affects the character formation of the individual as well as the other inmates.  In other words, prisoners interchange their wrong concepts, perceptions and ideologies which worsen their values and increase the tendency to involve in crimes again. To illustrate it, criminals become more dangerous when they get opportunity to share their ideas with other offenders. For instance, prisons are the floor where new gangs form, and the place where criminals plan their next crime unitedly. Hence, prisons sometimes make reverse effect than what it meant to be.

In conclusion, based on the above discussion, it is clear that education is the better choice than imprisonment in the efforts to reduce crime rate. So, if the authority concerned and governments try to solve the flaws of imprisonment, it can also make huge impact on controlling misdeeds in society.