SOCIETY PAYING A HIGH PREMIUM TO KEEP PRISONERS

The United States incarcerates more people than any other country in
the world -- per capita and in raw numbers. Even China has fewer humans
behind bars than the United States has. A study released Feb. 28 by
the Pew Center on the States reports the U.S. incarceration rate is
eight times greater than that of any other industrialized nation. For
the first time in the country's history, more than one in every 100
adults is in jail.

It's no wonder the United States economy seems headed for shambles. A
culture on a crusade to imprison more and more people isn't well. It's
delusional, following a self-destructive path, unable to distinguish
wealth from poverty.

Incarceration should serve no purpose other than to protect the
innocent from violent predators. Using a cage to punish nonviolent
criminals makes no sense. Yet the War on Drugs is the only reason jail
and prison populations have gone up steadily for the past 30 years --
an era in which violent crime has steadily decreased. More than half
of all federal prisoners are in prison because of the drug war -- most
of whom pose no threat of violence to others.

So that politicians can sell tough-on-crime platforms, our states
collectively spent nearly $50 billion on corrections in 2007, up from
$11 billion in 1987. In Kentucky, the inmate population has increased
by 600 percent in 30 years.

Society feeds, shelters and clothes every single prisoner. But the
cost is far greater. Each dependent prisoner represents one human who
no longer produces and contributes to the economy. And it gets worse.
When fathers become prisoners -- wards of the state who can't
contribute -- they leave behind children who typically become dependent
upon the collective. No economic advantage comes from a prisoner. Each
and every prisoner is pure liability. If you don't believe it, compare
your tax bills and the new jail over in Graham.

A healthy society views prisons as necessary evils -- options of last
resort to protect the public from violence. It views prisoners as
liabilities, and free humans as assets. A healthy society works hard
to minimize prison populations, for the sake of limiting liabilities
and helping the common good. In the United States, we've somehow
mistaken prisoners as assets. We've purchased a lie, sold by
politicians looking for easy political gain. It's a sick and twisted
perspective, and one that threatens to break us.