The Prison Problem

Fresh off news that more Americans are in prison this year, we come to another story of an ex-con recently out of jail committing a crime, this time the murder of his daughter and her friend. Florida has been wracked of late by sexual predators who hardly spent any time in prison and are now free to harm children again.

So we have two points: More people are going to prison, and prison isn't doing the job of "rehabilitation" for the prisoners. Therefore, we have a serious problem. It seems to me that the answer is straight-forward. Give up this stupid idea that prison can rehabilitate most people. Do I believe that no one ever comes out of prison better than they went in? No. But the conditions in prisons do little to bring about any positive change. Therefore, prisons should serve the purpose they were intended for, to hold people who are a threat to society.

I am willing to allow my tax money to go towards holding violent, evil men and women from ever being free to prey on others again. Much has been made of the increase in prison population. But the number of Americans serving time in prison is 2 million (this number includes local jail holdings, which should not be considered because many of these will never see prison time.) But even with the trumped number, that makes for .7%, hardly a large segment of our population. Am I willing to see .7% of the population put away for life? If they break the laws and harm others, you better believe it. The safety of the law abiding citizens far out-weighs any rights that criminals should have. And it's about time that we start putting our contributing citizens first, and the offenders a distant second.