This is the lead editorial in today's Detroit Free Press.
Kansas is doing some interesting and effective stuff with its inmate population, but you'll have to go to the link for it.
http://www.freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080713/OPINION01/807130485Get-tough policies cause more crime, deny inmates a future
JULY 13, 2008
U.S. taxpayers spend at least $60 billion a year on a growing body of state and federal prisons, county jails and local lockups. With jail and prison populations that have increased nearly eightfold over the past 35 years, the United States has become the world's leading jailer.
More than one in every 100 U.S. adults is locked up -- and 5 million more are on probation or parole. At any given time, one in 32 adults is under the supervision of the criminal justice system.
Tough-on-crime policies, not increases in crime, are mostly responsible. Mandatory drug sentences, three-strike and so-called truth-in-sentencing laws, as well as high recidivism rates, have created our Incarceration Nation. Even so, violent crime rates are higher than when the nation's prison building boom started more than three decades ago.
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Mass incarceration has created economic and human costs the nation can no longer afford. Michigan spends $2 billion a year on corrections, or 20% of its general fund. It is one of four states spending more on corrections than higher education.
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more, lots more ...