Yes, I know. I am probably a 'bad' person for posting this article. But when you are talking about billions upon billions of tax dollars (your's AND mine), a little discussion couldn't hurt.

And I am sure that there are many of us here who often wonder if we are making a difference. Yes, a difference one person / victim at a time. I do not disagree with that. But overall, is what we are doing as a group effective for the group? I do not know. In any event, here is the article.



U.S. prison system a costly and harmful failure: report
Mon Nov 19, 2007 6:06pm EST
By Randall Mikkelsen

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The number of people in U.S. prisons has risen eight-fold since 1970, with little impact on crime but at great cost to taxpayers and society, researchers said in a report calling for a major justice-system overhaul.

The report on Monday cites examples ranging from former vice-presidential aide Lewis "Scooter" Libby to a Florida woman's two-year sentence for throwing a cup of coffee to make its case for reducing the U.S. prison population of 2.2 million -- nearly one-fourth of the world's total.

It recommends shorter sentences and parole terms, alternative punishments, more help for released inmates and decriminalizing recreational drugs. It said the steps would cut the prison population in half, save $20 billion a year and ease social inequality without endangering the public.

But the recommendations run counter to decades of broad U.S. public and political support for getting tough on criminals through longer, harsher prison terms and to the Bush administration's anti-drug and strict-sentencing policies.

"President (George W.) Bush was right," in commuting Libby's perjury sentence this year as excessive, the report said. But he should also have commuted the sentences of hundreds of thousands of other Americans, it said.

"Our contemporary laws and justice system practices exacerbate the crime problem, unnecessarily damage the lives of millions of people (and) waste tens of billions of dollars each year," it said.

The report was produced by the JFA Institute, a Washington criminal-justice research group, and its authors included eight criminologists from major U.S. public universities. It was funded by the Rosenbaum Foundation and by financier and political activist George Soros' Open Society Institute.

The Justice Department dismissed the recommendations and cited findings that about 25 percent of the violent-crime drop in the 1990s can be attributed to increases in imprisonment.

"The United States is experiencing a 30-year low in crime, in large part due to the tough enforcement actions we've taken in the last decade," department spokesman Peter Carr said.

SHIFTING ATTITUDES

But there are signs of shifting attitudes on sentencing policies. Some financially strapped states are shortening sentences and Congress is moving to pass increased help for released prisoners, said Executive Director Marc Mauer of the Sentencing Project, which has advocated alternatives to long sentences.

"Compared to where we were in the mid-(19)90s, it's been a very significant change," Mauer said.

More than 1.5 million people are now in U.S. state and federal prisons, up from 196,429 in 1970, the report said. Another 750,000 people are in local jails. The U.S. incarceration rate is the world's highest, followed by Russia, according to 2006 figures compiled by Kings College in London.

Although the U.S. crime rate began declining in the 1990s it is still about the same as in 1973, the JFA report said. But the prison population has soared because sentences have gotten longer and people who violate parole or probation, even with minor lapses, are more likely to be imprisoned.

"The system is almost feeding on itself now. It takes years and years and years to get out of this system and we do not see any positive impact on the crime rates," JFA President James Austin, a co-author of the report, told a news conference.

The report said the prison population is projected to grow by another 192,000 in five years, at a cost of $27.5 billion to build and operate additional prisons.

At current rates, one-third of all black males, one-sixth of Latino males, and one in 17 white males will go to prison during their lives. Women represent the fastest-growing segment of the prison population, the report said.

"The massive incarceration of young males from mostly poor- and working-class neighborhoods, and the taking of women from their families and jobs, has crippled their potential for forming healthy families and achieving economic gains," it said.

[This message was edited by RTC on 11-21-07 at .]

Probably not very much. The Psion was one of the eariest PDAs. It has been largely supplanted by the Blackberry and the various types of "Smartphones".

What you never see looked at in these studies is the costs of 100,000 more murdering, raping, robbing, stealing, doping thugs loose on the streets of Texas.

You're not bad, you're simply in the wrong business. It seems rather obvious that you have given up on trying to work within our system to do justice and you're simply collecting a check and finger-pointing with the other do-nothing nay-sayers. I suggest you go out and get a less-important job than the one you purport to have.

No single person has more control over prison populations than a prosecutor.

The legislature could reduce the sentences, but no single legislator could do it alone. The governor can only sign bills. A judge has a lot of discretion but faces review. A police detective working alone has discretion, but not as much as a prosecutor.

If the crime does not merit prison time, reduce the charge. If there is no crime, or insufficient evidence, dismiss it. Simple.

There will be occasional high profile cases where reducing the charge is not an option, but the high profile nature gives you the most deterrent value for hammering the guilty with a long prison term. The deterrence may counterbalance the costs.

I'd say prosecutor is a fine position for someone interested in influencing the prison population. Using your discretion to uphold justice is part of your job. But you should make such decisions in the name of justice. Not to save money on your taxes.

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What you never see looked at in these studies is the costs of 100,000 more murdering, raping, robbing, stealing, doping thugs loose on the streets of Texas.

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The article and the studies that support the article make no mention, and in fact do not include, the early release of violent defendants. The whole point to these kinds of studies is the effect of shorter sentences, parole / probation terms, and alternative sentences on non-violent offenders, usually drug offenders.

And please do not think that I have "given up" on anything! Each case and each victim is an individual and they are all important. But if sending someone to prison for long streches (and we are only talking of non-violent offenders of the type mentioned in these studies), does no good, then why do it?????

This is hardly the first or only study to report such facts.

And don't blame me because it's not like I am the one making these studies! I just happen to be the only one here who wants to publicly discuss this issue.

The least that we can do is to be honest with the taxpayers who foot the bill for all of this. If we are locking people up just because we want to lock them up and because we think that they are 'bad people', then do so. But please do not say that we are locking people up as a way of reducing crime or preventing crimes because that simply is not the case (at least according to all of these studies). All of the tens of billions of dollars that we are spending each year are doing nothing to reduce crime overall. And that is an absolute, unrefutable fact.

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Originally posted by jsboone:
Probably not very much. The Psion was one of the eariest PDAs. It has been largely supplanted by the Blackberry and the various types of "Smartphones".

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I thought the Psion was that square, boxy vehicle marketed by Toyota to the youth market. It's often on the pimp my ride show, being customized. I wonder how much gas milage it gets?

Oh, now I see you were talking about Prisons and not Psion's.

I believe in specific deterrence. For those sentenced to prison, we can be absolutely certain that they are committing no crimes in the "free world" while they are in prisons. I'm happy to pay extra tax dollars for this to happen.

That is all.

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Originally posted by RTC:

U.S. prison system a costly and harmful failure: report
Mon Nov 19, 2007 6:06pm EST
By Randall Mikkelsen

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The number of people in U.S. prisons has risen eight-fold since 1970, with little impact on crime but at great cost to taxpayers and society, researchers said in a report calling for a major justice-system overhaul.

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That might be one of the most ridiculous statements of all time. Crime rates have plummeted since the prison boom began. In fact, reporters continue to embarass themselves by talking of the "paradox" surrounding the increase in prison populations while crime has decreased. They must also think that dawning daylight causes the sun to rise each morning.

quote:

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The report was produced by the JFA Institute, a Washington criminal-justice research group, and its authors included eight criminologists from major U.S. public universities. It was funded by the Rosenbaum Foundation and by financier and political activist George Soros' Open Society Institute.

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At least they made that disclosure, which sums up in one phrase all I need to know about the supposed "study." I'm sure it's like many of the 1960s-70s era studies that first advocated turning our peninteniaries and penal systems into kinder, gentler places -- a trend which preceded the largest crime boom in U.S. history. I can't prove whether that was a cause or a correlation, but I'm not really disposed to find out. Fool me once, ...