Summaries
This part of the study guide will help you understand the four texts in your exam material, by providing you with summaries for each of the text…
...
I: “Business owner gives ex-cons a chance at new start”
Author: WLKY TV Station (Hearst Television)
Genre: Video
Year of Publication: 2017
The text is a video report broadcast in 2017 on WLKY TV Station, which belongs to the American broadcasting company Hearst Television.
The video presents Jeff, the business owner of a pizza and pasta restaurant who employs people with a criminal record as part of a program called Brothers helping Brothers.
Jeff beli…
...
II: “Giving ex-cons a second chance on the assembly line”
Author: John Sprovieri
Genre: Article
Year of Publication: 2016
The text is an editorial article written by John Sprovieri and published in 2016 in Assembly Magazine.
The article presents a few statistics regarding convicts and ex-convicts in the US. These reveal that the US has the highest rate of incarceration in the world, and 67% of ex-cons return to jail within the first three years of their release.
The author argues that employment strongly influences the chances of an ex-con becoming a repeat offender. According …
...
III: “Can hiring ex-offenders make a business more profitable?”
Author: The Guardian
Genre: Article
Year of Publication: 2016
The text appeared in the British publication The Guardian in 2016.
The text presents the case of Jimmy Erickson, an American man who was imprisoned for twenty years for a violent felony. When he was released, Erickson found a job at a farming company in Michigan called Butterball Farms, which often employs ex-cons. Now, seven years later, Erickson is married and still with the company where he has received several…
...
IV: “Commentary: Is Texas wasting money by locking up so many people? Easy answer is yes”
Author: Chris Tomlinson
Genre: Article
Year of Publication: 2017
The text is an opinion article written by Chris Tomlinson and published in Houston Chronicle in 2017.
The article argues that the US prison system is the government program that is most wasteful of taxpayers’ money, because people who could be rehabilitated are often unnecessarily imprisoned, at great cost.
Texas State is one of the most relevant examples, having the biggest number of inmates in the US,…
