Cost of locking up Americans too high: Pew study

Cost of locking up Americans too high: Pew study

www.reuters.com

One in every 31 U.S. adults is in the corrections system, which includes jail, prison, probation and supervision, more than double the rate of a quarter century ago, according to a report released on Monday by the Pew Center on the States.

The study, which said the current rate compares to one in 77 in 1982, concluded that with declining resources, more emphasis should be put on community supervision, not jail or prison.

"Violent and career criminals need to be locked up, and for a long time. But our research shows that prisons are housing too many people who can be managed safely and held accountable in the community at far lower cost," said Adam Gelb, director of the Center's Public Safety Performance Project, which produced the report.

(visit the link for the full news article)



[edit on 3-3-2009 by baseball101]

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[edit on 3/3/2009 by semperfortis]

Wow this is absolutely astounding, quite embarrassing, and pretty obvious that this was going to happen.... according to this article

The United States has the highest incarceration rate and the biggest prison population of any country in the world, according to figures from the U.S. Department of Justice.

lots of interesting stuff thrown out there ... this is really sad ... there really should be something done ... the government needs to stop locking up people for stupid petty crimes ... thoughts?

www.reuters.com
(visit the link for the full news article)

[edit on 3-3-2009 by baseball101]

[edit on 3/3/2009 by semperfortis]

I would start by releasing anyone who is in jail for drug use and other victimless crimes. As long as you are not infringing upon the rights of anyone else, then per the constitution you have the right to do what ever you want.

Anyone who has ever been to jail knows that incarceration is not the answer to rehabilitation.

reply to post by Anonymous Avatar


i agree anyone who is basically not in there for crimes that involve violence should just do some sort of community service with probation or rehab or something else depending on the crime ... definitely would save the taxpayers a good chunk of change

[edit on 3-3-2009 by baseball101]

reply to post by baseball101


Yep the problem is there is someone who is getting rich off of this scam of imprisoning the population. Pretty sick to think there are people out there who don't mind ruining people's lives for a bigger bank account. I suppose it fits with the whole mentality of our Governments and the Bankers who pull their strings.

reply to post by Anonymous Avatar


yes it makes you wonder ... another interesting thing i saw you post at the end of your first post was the thing about how it's not the answer for rehabilitation ... do you think that people come out completely different after serving their sentence? i might be taking out of context but if that's what you're trying to say i agree people who go to jail for petty crimes just aren't the same people when they get out ...

They can start by discarding the lifers who have murdered. We need to show them we will not stand for this behavior. You kill and you will be killed. Simple. I would bet that the crime rate for murder falls dramaticaly. Sure very few may be in there who are innocent but a very small price to pay for change for the better. But instead we house them,feed them,educate them and make them fit.

I taught a literature course in a prison once. Most of the people were there for drug abuse or trafficking. It was a low security prison, so the least violent offenders were probably housed there, but the prisoners were never difficult to deal with and seemed grateful for the opportunity to further their education (and no doubt just to break the monotony of prison life). I think most of the population of that prison could be paroled.

The OP article says that the high numbers of those incarcerated are a result of how a state deals with its offenders rather than a rising crime rate. I would have liked it to go into more detail.

I heard just today that 1 in 13 people in our state is either in prison or on probation and the rate is the highest in the country. I have thought for a while that the judicial system here has been playing up a lot of cases just to have a high case load to justify a lot of jobs in the judicial system. This that I heard today, just confirmed to me what I have been thinking already.

A man approached me just last week and told me that he thought that people have been arrested and put on work details before they had been found guilty. It looks like they are looking for free labor. I think the system is just a scam. They want to keep their high paying jobs and have to justify them some way. I'm afraid there are a lot of people in prison that don't deserve to be there. There have been judges, a D.A. and sheriff in our judicial circuit that have been put in prison or facing charges right now. The only difference between the legal system or law enforcement and the criminals around here, is which side of the bars they are standing on. It's really sad.

They can get rid of about 60-75% of those people by legalizing drugs.

If someone wants to snort coke and die, well...that's their prerogative.

Just make it illegal for them to be under the influence on the road or under the influence when their job entails transporting the public (ie. bus driver, boat captain, etc.) Of course many of these laws are already in place.

Additionally, corporations can make it a company policy, if they so choose, that their employees not be under the influence as well and can still do drug tests (pre-employment, random or otherwise) if they so choose as well.

This would probably save TRILLIONS in taxpayer money and would probably save companies a few hundred million as well.

Oh, but I would like to add a little side note that ALL politicians be drug tested on a yearly basis, and if they test positive, then they're booted out of office.

I recall someone on another thread advocating making prison cities to keep up with the incarceration rate... I disagreed, stating the judicial system in the states needs to be overhauled. (Same goes for many other countries I'm afraid.)

How far will the incarceration rate go in the US? You can already lose all credibility due to the government simply "wondering" if you could be a "terrorist"...

This level of over-enforcement should have been stopped a long time ago... but it just keeps getting worse.

I wonder how long it will be before these suggestions of prison cities simply turned into "Let's just wall off the US and turn it into one big prison"?