uh oh - somebody got me going about prisons

The New York Times has an opinion article, The Dark Side of America, that brings up the subject of how bad we treat Americans. The article states:

The sickening pictures of American troops humiliating Iraqi prisoners have led inevitably to questions about the standards of treatment in the corrections system at home...The nearly 12 million people who pass through the corrections system each year are often subject to violent attacks by other inmates, and prisoner-on-prisoner rape is endemic. Drug-resistant strains of tuberculosis, easily transmitted in tight spaces, have become a common problem.

See, as I said previously, we love to inflict brutal torture whenever we feel we can get away with it. This article has fueled my fire about prisons. You ready?



Our criminal justice system has many faults, but the correctional system is among the largest. Aside from not protecting our Americans from disease, sentencing is, in many cases, discrimination gone rampant. Three strikes laws make for draconian sentences to be served by non-violent offenders. Incarcerating non-violent offenders only makes things worse for everyone. Taxpayers have to pay. The children of prisoners are at risk for just about everything a child can be at risk for: truancy, teen pregnancy, drug use, gang involvement, crime. Prison breeds violence, too.



Have I mentioned yet that non-violent drug offenders should not be incarcerated? The war on drugs is a complete failure.

After 20-plus years of zero-tolerance policies and increasingly harsh criminal penalties, we have over half a million people behind bars on drug charges nationwide -- more than the total prison population in all of Western Europe. We're spending billions of dollars to keep them locked up. Yet the federal government's own research demonstrates that drugs are cheaper, purer, and more readily available than when this war started. Heroin use is up. Ecstasy use is up. Teenagers say that marijuana is easier to get than alcohol. No matter how you slice it, this is no success story.

Also on the issue of incarcerating non-violent criminals, there is this other thing: The 1998 Higher Education Act restricts eligibility for federal grants, loans, and work study for students with drug convictions.



Hmmm...we have a kid who is experimenting with drugs and needs direction. Let us make it as difficult as possible for this kid to play it straight. Let's take away all his opportunities so there is nothing left but crime. That makes sense. Remember this phrase?: NOT! This is my biggest problem with this war on terror. Why not fix our problems at home first, before we go fixing the rest of the world.