Crime and Punishment, what a business?

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20071119/ts_n...
.. this report shows a steady increase in prison populations, with an emphasis on soft drug and non violent crimes packing our prison systems and costing the Tax payer 20 plus Billion a year....
why does America have the highest Jail population in the free and not so free world?...
could it be that at exactly the same time these populations are burgeoning State Prisons have become privatized profit centers?.. an industrial Prison Complex? With a built in slave labor force ?
http://arcweb.sos.state.or.us/legislativ...

That is Darth Cheney's plan

Don't commit a crime and you won't go to jail. Pretty simple. Means there are a lot of people committing crimes. The government should raise taxes to build more prisons. I wouldn't mind paying taxes to keep convicted felons off the streets.

Why don't you use this forum to advocate for legalizing drugs, that appears to be what you are saying in your statement.

Bill, you seem to think its all cheneys fault.

But would you rather have a president getting ready to exit his presidency, put up bail for a whole bunch of criminals, just as Clinton did? He put all kinds of bad people back on the street.

That could be one of the driving forces but the primary force behind it America politics of "Boo!" Politicians try to appear to be tough on crime and they simply have went overboard to say the least. We imprison people in America for everything now. It's gotten so ridiculous and out-of-hand that we are now spending more on putting people in prison than on education. Prison should be for violent/repeat offenders not jay walkers.

Make Pot Legal and you would be amazed at how much the Tax spending for prisons would go down, move the DWI prisoner to a hospital for repeat offenders and there goes another chunk, ... etc... when the laws don't match the population you end up with an inflated prison population,... it's also the precursor to every police state in history.....

The privatization of prisons only makes good financial sense. It saves tax dollars that would normally have to be paid from state coffers to build, house, staff and maintain prisons and prisoners and shifts this to the private sector. I don't see what your griping about. If it is a private prison it isn't your tax dollars paying for it.

The prison industry is now so big it is frightening.

Tough on crime became dumb on crime. We need reforms for sentencing, parole, and incarceration of the mentally ill to make us safer when inmates are released, and to save us lots of money.

Many of our brave soldiers will commit crimes and be incarcerated due to PTSD. We must overhaul the prison systems now.

To Events and Occasions: you are surely putting us on concerning who will pay for private prisons. Of course the money still comes from tax payers, but the funds are paid directly to a business for running the prison. Sounds like added cost to me. There is no incentive for private prisons to rehabilitate inmates. It reduces their profit margin.

Private prisons could be part of the solution provided the amount they are paid depends on measurable goals such as the percent of released inmates that become responsible citizens, and a reduction in the recidivism rate.