Jail

According to a new study, America now has 1.6 million people in prison.

That’s the same as 1 out of every 100 adults. The statistics are even scarier when it comes to rates of minorities, with 1 in 36 Hispanics behind bars, and a whopping 1 in 15 black adults. The US imprisons more people than any other country in the world.

Because of this, we spend about $49 billion in taxes annually on corrections. The average amount of money spent in that time to incarcerate an inmate is $23,876. By 2011, the US is expected to spend $74 billion dollars each year on the prison system.

Hopefully, this will be a wake up call to lawmakers. Their current policy of warehousing people is not effective, in terms of cost or in terms of fighting crime.

As the saying goes, all prison does is make better criminals.

Consider this; it costs $23,876 per year to imprison a person for one year, and about $5,000 for one year at a public college. If our country got serious about ‘fighting’ crime, they would realize that it must be done at the ground level. There are people who commit violent crimes and deserve to be imprisoned, but then again, there are tens of thousands of people who have committed non-violent crimes and are behind bars for years. These people, for the most part, are not threats to themselves or their communities, but none the less are stuck behind bars for years, and at a high cost to tax payers.

If we really want to do something about crime, we should try diverting those funds to the communities that really need them. Put the money into inner-city & rural school systems and community centers. Try increasing treatment for repeat drug and alcohol offenders. Offer re-education for inmates after release, so at least they have an idea of the options available to them. Try retraining police forces so that they can do actual policing and not just resort to the strong arm tactics that many officers use.

The Government’s current policies are self defeating. Unless something is done soon, the US will continue to look less and less like a democracy, and more like a totalitarian state.

Jay reminds all of my readers: be careful out there, and know your rights.