The Penal System is Not Working!

A new report from the Pew Center on the States says that one in 99.1 adults in the United States is in jail or prison. They further go on to mention that in 2007 alone the 50 states spent in excess of $49 billion on corrections and keeping people housed in the penal system. That is $38 billion more than the $11 billion dollars we were spending 20 years ago. Though inflation may have something to do with the larger number financially, the fact that this is the first time in history that more than 1 in every 100 adults in this country was housed in jail or prison. That is a frightening and shocking statistic.

These people that are being stored in the penal system are creating a financial hardship for many cash strapped states that have in the past not wanted to appear soft on crime, but are now trying to figure out more creative sentencing and how to create more programs and incentives for prisoners and people that have broken the law but whom would be better served to remain out of jail and on the job. With so many people out of circulation they are not making any contribution at all to society and are actually a serious drain on the resources of the American taxpayer. When you couple that with the fact that a huge number of the inmates that are housed at taxpayer's expense have nowhere to go when they are released back into society, you create a prison and jail culture. People who will roll in and out of the prisons and jails, going back for violations or parole or of court orders. Some end up back in jail for failing to pay fines that were imposed upon them at the time of their sentencing. Many others will return to the penal system because they have not learned any skills or a trade which will allow them to reintergrate into society after their "debt to society" is paid.

In many states the glut of prisoners that are doing short terms of less than one year both in the jail and in the prison system make up the larger portion of the prison population. The cost of just providing adequate housing for these prisoners has caused many states to abandon programs which are geared toward the rehabilitation of criminals and toward teaching them a skilled trade so that they have a better chance of staying out of the penitentiary once they are released. The poorer states with the larger populations of poor people, lower paying jobs, and higher prison populations are simply not able to find the funding to do more than just store these people and also while they are housing them they must provide enough supervision to protect the inmates from one another.

The Pew report was compiled by the Center on the State's Public Safety Performance Project, which is working directly with 13 states on developing programs to divert offenders from prison without jeopardizing public safety. David Crary-AP national writer, Record- High Ratio of Americans in Prison, published 2-28-2008, published by the Associated Press, retrieved from http://www.mylot.com/w/newsarticle/662459.aspx

The report says that states are trying to become more creative with their sentencing guidelines and want to develop the programs that will see people remaining on the streets, supervised, but self supporting rather than running them back and forth through the penal system. With the increases to the prison and the parole populations we are certainly creating our own problems by failing to address these issues with any alternatives other than longer sentences in jail. Being tough on crime is all well and good but not at the expense that we are incurring. The justice system just is not considering the results that their sentences are imposing not upon the prisoner but upon the taxpayers in their states. The taxpayers are the people that elect judges to the bench in most cased and the taxpayers are definitely the people who are bearing the punitive effects on the new tough on crime laws that have been adopted around the country. Leniency is not popular and compassion seems to be a forgotten concept in the modern justice system. While taxpayers keep calling for longer sentences and tougher penalties for crime they are not looking at the consequences of these penalties. The entire penal system and sentencing guidelines for offenders needs to be addressed in the light of the new statistical information. Because as long as these people are housed in jails instead of being out on the street, working for a living, and making a contribution to society, they are a complete drain on the economic resources of the American people.