What do you think should be done about the rapidly rising prison population?

Question

according to a recent study, the prison population in the USA is set to rise by 200,000 people over the next 5 years and costing the US government (tax payers) over 27 billion dollars. I have a strong belief on what could be done to solve this problem, but I am curious about other's views on this.

UPDATE: not necessarily referring to death row.

ok, 13 answers...here's my idea. Why not make prison as tough as possible. I mean, bring back the chain gang and make people work their friggin' asses off while incarcerated. Screw all this "Hey, I got my degree in jail" crap and why do they have internet connections whilst in jail?? As long as the federal and state governments make it a lovely place to spend your time in prison, why the hell not repeat offend??? Hell, I think people can find their soul mate and man/man love just as easy busting up rocks, picking up trash and doing something to beautify the country just as easily as they can playing ball, jamming in a prison band, studying prison law, surfing the 'net etc.
Make it tough to be in jail, goddamn*t!!

Discuss....

Answer 1

Put them in the Thunder Dome. Then we can gamble on it.

Answer 2

There is a simple resolution to this problem reinstate the death penalty, it is really unfortunate that no one including our governments do not want to take responsibility for these criminals, and the crimes they commit, so we the tax payer will continue to pay the billions of dollars it takes to keep them alive, and a five star prison hotel to live in, unless the people stand and say enough is enough we will continue to pay, and before anything could possibly change you would need to get rid of all the bleeding hearts in this country first.

Answer 3

Many of the convicts are there on victimless crimes, in particular drugs. If drug use were decriminilized and drug sales were allowed in stores where it could be more closely regulated, the amount of crime would go down. Maybe we could then spend more money that we would be saving on rehab and prevention of it getting to kids (like we try with alcohol and tobacco).

The "three strikes you're out" laws have put even minor criminals into our prisons. A revisiting how those are applied might be well worth our judicial time.

Answer 4

We should legalize Marijuana and release all people incarerated for crimes regardiing possesion or sales of it.
We should parole all people who have been in prison for 5 years or more that were convicted of non-violent crimes
We should release those two border agents immediately
We should release Dr Kevorkian
We should execute all that have been convicted of capital offenses that we know are guilty and are on death row over 5
years (like these child killers that we have videos of-and armed robbers that we have the video on-and these creeps that have killed others in public
Now we have a little room for Bush and those that lied to us about things that matter

Answer 5

Because of the cost to taxpayers, I believe that society is missing a valid link to the causes of the consequence that lead so many people down this pathway. The number one cause will be background, education, morals, responsibility, and goodwill; not being nurtured in the early years. We must encourage good citizenship to all people if we want a society that is safe. Too much money, and not proper guidelines to spend will also bring poverty early. Same with no money.. burglary, murder, etc.

Answer 6

There needs to be a lot of money spent on meaningful rehabilitation of prisoners to give them other options instead of returning to a life of crime when they get out of prison. The knee jerk reaction of locking people up hasn't worked. Time to try something useful.

Answer 7

with the exception of child molesters, murderers, and rapists---everyone else should be released and confined to house arrest for the remainder of his/her sentence. failure to abide by house arrest would result in a permanent return to prison to serve out the remaining time of the original sentence.

Answer 8

Move them offshore to a tropical island and let them play survivor.

Answer 9

If they were all sent to/housed in TX?
Capital punishment would 'end' the financial problem.

Answer 10

Free the NON violent drug offenders. They aren't hurting anyone.