Let's Move away from Cars, Folks. I was reading Parade Magazine on Sunday....

Why We Must Fix Our Prisons
By Senator Jim Webb
Publication Date: 03/29/2009
Inmates at a facility in California, a state that spent almost $10 billion on corrections last year. America's criminal justice system has deteriorated to the point that it is a national disgrace. Its irregularities and inequities cut against the notion that we are a society founded on fundamental fairness. Our failure to address this problem has caused the nation's prisons to burst their seams with massive overcrowding, even as our neighborhoods have become more dangerous. We are wasting billions of dollars and diminishing millions of lives. We need to fix the system. Doing so will require a major nationwide recalculation of who goes to prison and for how long and of how we address the long-term consequences of incarceration.

Twenty-five years ago, I went to Japan on assignment for PARADE to write a story on that country's prison system. In 1984, Japan had a population half the size of ours and was incarcerating 40,000 sentenced offenders, compared with 580,000 in the United States. As shocking as that disparity was, the difference between the countries now is even more astounding--and profoundly disturbing. Since then, Japan's prison population has not quite doubled to 71,000, while ours has quadrupled to 2.3 million.

The United States has by far the world's highest incarceration rate. With 5% of the world's population, our country now houses nearly 25% of the world's reported prisoners. We currently incarcerate 756 inmates per 100,000 residents, a rate nearly five times the average worldwide of 158 for every 100,000.

In addition, more than 5 million people who recently left jail remain under "correctional supervision," which includes parole, probation, and other community sanctions.

All told, about one in every 31 adults in the United States is in prison, in jail, or on supervised release.

This all comes at a very high price to taxpayers: Local, state, and federal spending on corrections adds up to about $68 billion a year.

READ THE WHOLE STORY if you didn't not see it.
http://www.parade.com/

Gandhi said that “You can judge a society by how it treats its weakest members”. 21st Century America has failed this test on many levels, but none so glaring as how it treats its prisoners.

There are some more shocking statistics:

The United States is the third largest country in the world, yet it has by far the greatest number of prisoners…not per capita number…TOTAL NUMBER!

According to the Pew Charitable Trusts, one in 31 U.S. adults are behind bars, on probation or parole.

China has four times the U.S. population, yet has just 1.6 prisoners compared to our 2.3 million.

One million prisoners are non-violent offenders.

90% of prisoners are male.

Blacks are five times more likely to be imprisoned than Whites, and Hispanics are twice as likely.

In New York, 80% of prisoners are indigent, which means they are forced to rely on public defenders, who are usually overworked.

The costs of staying out of prison are prohibitive even for the middle class, but they are insurmountable for the poor.

Violence within the prisons is rampant.

Nearly 70% of released prisoners will be arrested within three years.

The fact is our justice system is unjust. It favors the wealthy and the white. The most famous illustration is the discrepancy between crack cocaine and powder cocaine. Federal law mandates a five year minimum sentence for trafficking in 500 grams of powder cocaine, but only 5 grams of crack cocaine, which is cheaper and more often used by poor and minority users.

Prison isn’t designed to rehabilitate. American prisons are designed to punish. Non-violent prisoners learn violence, violent prisoners perfect it.

There is some hope. The Commission on Safety and Abuse in America’s Prisons has released a study complete with a plan to help America’s prison system.

President Obama, unlike his predecessor, has acknowledged the problems and plans to at least attempt to fix them.

Due to budgetary constraints, some states are beginning to release non-violent offenders.

America has a long way to go before its prison system reflects the country we want to be, but hopefully these are some steps in the right direction.

http://www.examiner.com/x-2133-Social-Justice-Examiner~y2009m3d29-Our-unjust-justice-and-prison-system