I agree with you that our laws regarding non violent drug offenders are absolutely ridiculous. Sending someone to prison for having a small bag of weed is almost unconscionable.
Rehabilitation should most definitely be the number one priority for most inmates. This is almost nonexistent in our penal system. When you have some non violent drug dealer in prison and do nothing to help them prepare for their reentry into society, what is it that you think they are going to do when they get out? They are going to do what they know and there is a good chance that they are going to end up back in prison. It's a ridiculous system and the laws are just what you said...draconian. The Rockefeller Laws did nothing but overcrowd the prisons. That helps no one. Rehabilitation, as in job training of some sort, is a good start, and they do have this in some prisons, but not enough.
I do have a problem with inmates getting free college education and degrees, but not job training. Even with a college degree it is still going to be very difficult for them to find employment using that degree, as they are convicted felons. That, in itself, is reason enough to not give them a free education. Plus, why should we pay for their education? Again, job training is the answer, and not just one or two fields, like food service or making furniture.
Now, as for cold blooded murderers. I have no problem with many of them spending their entire lives in prison, depending on the crime itself. What I mean is that there may sometimes be extenuating circumstances, but not usually. When someone breaks into someone's house to steal something, then kills the person when they wake up and find them, I think they deserve to die in jail, but when someone kills another person because said person raped their daughter, they don't deserve a sentence like that. It's all subjective.
One other problem, though often not thought of, is that prisons can really hurt nearby areas. We have two prisons right in my area: Collins Correctional Facility and Gowanda Correctional Facility. They are actually right next to each other, as in a road separates them, and I really don't understand why they aren't just one large prison. They are both medium security. Now, the nearby village of Gowanda has a steadily rising crime rate because the families of these prisoners move into the village, or the immediate area, and they aren't always upstanding citizens themselves. The village also has a spiraling drug problem...mostly meth.
The prison population shouldn't even be half of what it is. It's ridiculous, and unless something changes, it's going to continue to get worse.
The plural of mouse is mice. The plural of goose is geese. Why is the plural of moose not meese?
reply
share