Prison system

I dont whats going on but I heard some harrowing statistics about our prison system here in the U.S. What are the root causes?

freefromself, If you took even half the money currently being spent on law enforcement and incarceration for drug offenders, and spent it on rehab and preventative measures, it would reduce costs dramatically, and would actually be much more effective in curbing drug abuse. Prohibition has already been proven to be a failure.

What? The amount of people in them? With the bad economy, people have nothing better to do then crime.

Ya gotta get more specific.

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Why does the US have the highest prison population in the world (despite not having the largest population), uhm could be that people are more focused on trying to cure something than prevent it... if half the money was put into preventative programs instead of prisons, you wouldnt have all those people ending up in jail...

The root causes of the high incarceration rates in the US are:

- 1. Draconian drug laws
- 2. The money and willingness to enforce them

good answer TY, this issue is definitely not political. I dont know if legalizing drugs is the answer, we dont need an even more Drugged up incoherent society. We have enough brain-dead crap going on already. Like TY said the answer is in the answer, not the problem. . . How bout not glorifying drug use and thuggery to suceptable teens. Ya , that means you hoolyweird, and john stewart. LOL