1 In 100

More than one out of every hundred American adults are serving time in jails or prisons for their crimes.

The incarceration rates have been reduced in several states (such as in California, but still remain high in this state and in Texas), but the Justice Department and the Pew Center on the States have shown, through statistics, that there is a national increase. However, many do not see a real problem with the current situation and are not affected by the statistics because they simply cannot relate overcrowded prisons with decreasing violent crime rates.

I question whether the debate ends when one comes to the realization that, obviously, higher rates of incarceration will lead to lower crime rates, but perhaps only temporarily and with a diversion away from what may now be the real issues at hand that have to do with rehabilitation, the excessive indictment and persecution of nonviolent offenders (or known more implicitly as punitive incarceration), and prison reform. What about the seemingly racial divide within the judicial and penal systems? 1 out of every 15 black male adults are behind bars, while only 1 in every 355 white women are in jail. Is discrimination truly at play here or is it a combination of many cultural and social factors that have been ingrained in American society? Can we continue to afford a system in which it costs the American public $24,000 to keep one prisoner in jail for a year?

Incarceration should not be the only answer to crime, especially for nonviolent or minor crimes or juvenile misdemeanors. If only I could speak of viable alternatives that would make me look more credible. Many argue for more correctional facilities and more education so that prisoners who are released can have the opportunity to be productive citizens. Would cost-benefit analysis show that, in addition to lower crime rates, these prisoners would contribute to society and give back more than what they took from the system and tax-payers?

I understand the difficulty of proposing new public policies that would simultaneously reduce overcrowdedness and crime rates, while also reducing costs, or increase costs, yet reaping the benefits of proper investment such as education? It will be hard to address every issue that the prison system entails, and fixing the problems that surround the system may require fixes in many other areas of our communities. Various facets of society play a role and we have to ultimately ask ourselves what we should do to prevent crime, in general, and what provokes people to commit crimes on a communal basis so that we can better address the root of the criminal problem.

I cannot help but think that the current conditions are creating more burden and have greater ramifications than many would like to believe. What is most disconcerting is the fact that the United States is currently spending more on the prison system than on our education system. How ironic and unfortunate.