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Many Americans have difficulty envisioning long term solutions. There are persons on this site that have posted memes suggesting that the solution to solving social problems are to lock people up and incarcerate.

The US has more people incarcerated that the next ten countries combined. It is costing the US $80 billion dollars a year to pay for all those we have incacerated. This is neither efficient or a solution.

Much crime originates out of poverty. Being surrounded by overwhelming poverty with no vision of how to escape contributes to the incidence of crime. This does not excuse those that take what appears like an easy way out, rob a convenience store, sell drugs, pimp your daughter or girl friend, all are symtomatic of a sysyem that presents dead end solutions for the bottom strata of society. Perhaps what's needed is investment in those communities where most of the crime originates.

Instead of seeking retribution and vengeance, what America needs instead is hope. We need to take at least half the income spent in incarceration and put into infrastructure. Start a New Deal-style WPA. Empty the prisons of non-violent crimenals. Put them to work and house them. They get out by agreeing to work on the WPA, with the understanding that to fail to live up to their contract as signed will result in a return to prison to serve out their time.

Many when they go to prison intially are the results no job prospects and lost esteem by seeing no way out. Give them self-esteem by giving them productive work. By making that work appear important, as it in reality it is.

Yeah there will be recidivism. Its inevitable. But that is no reason to not try. What we have is not working. The politicians most opposed are those politicians that have a significant investment in Private Prisons system (eg. Jeff Sessions).

Most opponents will complain that prisoners cannot be trusted, thats why they are locked up in the first place. That is true of many that are incarcerated. But its cynical to think that all are not rehabilitable. What exists doesn't work, so lets think long term, invest in human dignity, human self-esteem and the power of productive work as a lozenge to our crime and incarceration problem. It will be cheaper to put them to work, get our infrastructure re-built than it is to keep them incarcerated. Its really more efficient.

t1nick 8 Apr 22
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So true,...agree entirely. The majority of people never think beyond the simplistic idea of locking up wrongdoers and building ever more prisons when they fill up. As you point out, the money spent on incarceration needs to be more intelligently used....to prevent the causes of crime, most of which stems from poverty, deprivation, and lack of opportunity. We must look at putting taxpayers money to better use, by promoting social and education programmes in those areas with the largest amount of lawbreaking,

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Great subject. Thanks for posting.

Maybe it's our country's biblical background that makes us think of crime and punishment. They seem to not know anything else. People do know of the carrot and the stick. You can get a donkey to move by whipping his behind with a stick or you can encourage him forward with a carrot. This concept should also be in our minds when it comes to crime. There is a punitive justice, which is the kind we have in the Bible but we also have restorative justice (which attempts to fix the problem) which has been proven to be more effective in rehabilitating offenders.

Agree. Thanks

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There is quite a bit of research that supports this. But it is not a money maker so highly unlikely it will be considered.

Are you sure. Thinking long term it might just be a money saver. The cost to support this idea versus the yearly cost of incarceration might actually be a money maker by becoming an economic savings.

@t1nick I should qualify and say there are no business people or politicians who would make money off of this. More money in privatizing prisons.

@GreatNani unfortunately true. But at some point civic resposibility has to outweigh private profit. Im not naive and do not see it happening anytime soon. But it has to happen eventually. Private prisons will reach a point of diminishing returns where a rash of prison uprisings make prisons an untenable solution.

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