Main Claim:
America's prisons should be privatized because the government doesn't have enough money to run prisons on its own.
Subclaim:
It is obvious that the government does not have enough money to spend on today's prisons. Warren Burger
even goes so far as to say that "direct losses, he continued, run into many billions of dollars annually. But
indirect losses are vastly more and reach the astonishing figure of 100 billion dollars a year" (18). Davis, who
agrees that prisons cost too much, says that the money spent on prisons "devours the social wealth that could
be used to subsidize housing for the homeless, to ameliorate public education for poor and racially marginalized
communities, to open free drug rehabilitation programs for people who wish to kick their habits, to create a
national health care system, to expand programs to combat HIV, to eradicate domestic abuse -- and, in the
process, to create well-paying jobs for the unemployed" (49).
What's wrong with this essay?
1. It is too simple a formula in really developing an idea. Notice that the subclaim really goes no further than
stating a simple claim and then just listing grounding.
2. Is this really an argument? Is there anyone we've read who would disagree with this claim? Because of that,
it's an extremely simple claim to ground, and doesn't really do anything productive in persuading anyone who
would disagree with it.
3. This suffers from the "padded essay" effect. The overwhelming majority of writing here amounts to long
quotes and grounding. This is more an essay that talks about what other authors have to say, with little
original input from the author.
4. There is no disagreeing viewpoint that is brought in. The author has not responded to one of the required
elements of the writing assignment.