INCARCERATION RATES TOO HIGH

For 200 years Americans have extolled the values of personal freedom, which
has given us unprecedented wealth, power and technological advances. We had
the respect and envy of the world. What has changed?

The embarrassing prison abuses in Iraq have focused world attention on the
hallmark of our democratic society. The Iraq situation is not an
aberration, it is a reflection of our whole bloated penal system. The
statistics are appalling. The United States incarcerates at five times the
world rate, which has given us 2.1 million inmates or 25 percent of the
world's prisoners, from only 5 percent of the world's population. We are no
longer "the land of the free."

Are we safer? Evidently not. We have one of the world's most violent
societies. The crime rates have been declining for over 10 years but the
statistics show an inverse effect. The states with the highest
incarceration rates had the smallest declines in crime and vice versa.

Although there is no empirical evidence that incarceration prevents or even
deters crime, several studies have found that prisons cause crime. Our
mission is clear if we want to regain the respect and trust of the world.
We must bring our incarceration rates down from the highest to the lowest
in the world. We must practice what we preach.

Gary Fontaine

Oshkosh Correctional Institution