National crime and prison policies are failures, part 03

Well, as you can imagine, the last couple of days have been all too busy. Nor did I think that it would take a couple of days to come back to this subject. However, I am finally back to it. USA attitudes towards incarceration were not always as they are nowadays. Several events began to drive incarceration policies towards what we find today. One was a rising crime rate following the events of the... [Read more]

National crime and prison policies are failures, part 02

So, how did we get into the prison mess in which we find ourselves? To recap part 01, we have the highest prison population in the world, both in numbers, and in the percentage of our residents who are in jail. But, the situation that the Pew report lays out is even sadder than what has been reported so far. The Pew report goes on to say: “For some groups, the incarceration numbers are especially... [Read more]

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National crime and prison policies are failures, part 01

California State Prison, Los Angeles In a report on the failure of California’s prison policies, the New York Times reports that California now spends 10% of its budget on prison costs, and that this cost is expected to go higher. What are the causes? A study done by the Federal government shows that it is a mixture of policies that are close to creating the perfect wave of monetary meltdown... [Read more]