Comments on: The cost of a nation of incarceration
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- Thank you CBS and to the Vera Institute for this very informative piece. We're in complete support of the criminal justice reform. Education from the Inside Out Coalition focuses on greater access to education while incarcerated. By reinstating the Pell grants and other educational access for the incarcerated, recidivism will be progressively diminished yielding the desired impact, socially and economically. Please consider joining our coalition, so that we can all work together:
Campaign Video: http://******/EIOVideo
Change.org Petition: http://chn.ge/EIOPell - Reply to this comment
- Make room for George Zimmerman!
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- After four serious market crashes; bank, investment company and business failures; inflation, deflation and identity theft, many senior citizens no longer have the financial where-with-all to survive. Even with medicare, the cost of needed medical services can bankrupt a financially healthy retiree. For those poor victims of circumstance, prison is a logical alternative. There they receive medical and dental care, three square meals a day, shelter from the elements and companionship. Plus, their social security checks are on auto-deposit thereby building a small nest-egg for heirs or a first-class funeral.
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- I recommend the Ludivico technique.
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- Republicans say they don't want to do anything to raise taxes but they just can't help themselves from building and investing in those PRIVATE PRISONS. Extortion in disguise. Wolves in sheepskins. Want the country to be sold even farther down the river than it already has been? Then Vote Republican.
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- One solution is to due away with mandatory sentences for non violent crimes. Then when prisons get over crowded we could parole or let out the non violent prisoners. It makes no sense to parole a murderer, rapist, or other violent criminal and keep someone in prison for drug use etc.
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- In England, little children were hanged for stealing food. A twelve year old girl survived, so a guard jumped with her to make sure her neck was broken on the second try. The death penalty is not the answer. What about penal colonies like Devil's Island? The entire nation of Australia was founded by English prisoners sent there on ships, including as many women as men. England wanted to populate the entire country and did. A lot of people in Australia today are descendants of English criminals.
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- The stats shown beg the question: "What is the quickest way to turn the situation around?" The only viable answers include: (1) legalize all recreational drugs, tax the legal sale of those drugs, allow sale of drugs only by government controlled and accountable EXISTING organizations, release all currently convicted drug USERS, require enrollment of all drug addicts, provide free drugs to registered addicts, and dedicate ALL drug tax derived monies to drug and alcohol treatment and prevention services. Jail we users and addicts and we deprive him and those he/she supports a means to support their families and the government must support all. Do this and the price of drugs will drop to almost nothing. No more fat drug market, less crime! (2) Capital drug related crimes must bring swift capital punishments. We can not afford keeping death row inmates alive for ten and twenty years. (3) Release and transport all illegal alien inmates and their families to their country of origin. We can not afford to house thousands of foreign criminals what should not be here in the first place. 4) Hold parent(s) financially accountable for the crimes committed by their children until legal age of maturity. No exceptions. (5) Eliminate the DEA and the special court systems used to prosecute drug users--invest newly found drug tax monies into proven treatment and prevention programs Switch from catching to prevention on the individual level.
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- So here's simple logic on why violent crime occurs, and the solution!
When someone murders and/or robs a person they want money, or goods they can sell for money. The money is obviously not to make their mortgage or house payment, but rather to buy drugs.
The citizens then get upset that the police can't or won't do more, yet the citizens also don't want to pay more taxes (police generally don't prevent crime, they record the details and attempt to apprehend the criminal). As well, nobody wants to live in a police state.
Simple logic says that the "war" on drugs is a failed policy that has created the "criminal" situation.
Fact 1- If drugs were legal they would be cheap and accessible
Fact 2- The "war" on drugs empowers the cartels and sends billion$ outside our borders.
Fact 3- The Mob was created by prohibition on alcohol (same occurrence with the cartels).
Fact 4- Law enforcement costs would be reduced by as much as 50% (lower taxes)
Fact 5- When we tell kids that marijuana is dangerous then they try it and find out it's not, their next step is to try drugs that in fact are dangerous because we are now "the boy who cried wolf".
Fact 6- The myth is that if drugs were legalized today we'd all go out & shoot some heroin right away... Really? Would you?
Fact 7- The US imprisons more non-violent offenders than all other industrialized countries COMBINED. Land of the free? If you aren't imprisoned you're a prisoner of tax to pay for them.
Fact 8- Legal sale of drugs with free market conditions (not like those expensive compassion club stores) would have huge positive financial benefits for the economy.
Fact 9- Legalizing drugs is NOT the same as endorsing them. It's only allowing liberty to work through the radical idea that other people are not your property or mine.
Fact 10- Just like the wars abroad, no matter how much tax money we spend we cannot change a humans mind about anything, we can only force submission of some. Illegal drugs will never be eradicated, but making them illegal in the first place creates the black market. When illegal drugs aren't available many turn to legal substances like prescription drugs, bath salts, chemicals, etc... and THESE substances are far more harmful! I'd rather my children smoke a joint and live to tell the tale than try bath salts and die or become vegetables.
End the "war" on drugs and you can kiss the murders, assaults & robberies goodbye. - Reply to this comment
- Nothing new. This has been going on since the 1960s, it's just exploded in the last 10 years. Nothing new. Privitization of prisons? You gotta feed the beast -- and you create laws and lock up people for the least little offense. Some of these guys could be put on monitors. You can test their IQ and see if they are HS grads. If not, mandate that they go back to school, and if not lock them up.
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