[TKDietz]

Like I said the only thing prisons are good for is keeping the really bad people away from the rest of us. They do not make people sent there better people. Generally they come out worse than when they went in. They make new criminal contacts, learn knew criminal skills and most seem to come out more hardened criminals with worse criminal attitudes. Around 70% who are released from prison will be rearrested on new felony charges within three years of their release. The other 30% may be just not getting caught. Statistics show that we have something like 2.1 million people in state and federal prisons but really more than that go every year because so many just spend a few months in prison and then are paroled only to be replaced by others only there for a short time. The prison system in this country is already bursting at the seams. There is no way we could keep all of these people a lot longer, although the best thing for us would be to keep some of the dangerous people and career criminals in a lot longer. I say we just need to get smarter and send less there in the first place but keep the ones we do send a lot longer. We need to figure out other ways to deal with most of these others rather then send them somewhere for a few months or a year or two (at great expense to the rest of us) that is just going to turn them into worse criminals.

[John O]

I say we just need to get smarter and send less there in the first place but keep the ones we do send a lot longer.

If you're going to fix the problem, really fix the problem. If the recidivism rate is so high, then for all perps sentenced to 15 years or more, convert the sentence into a death penalty and get them away from us for good.

Our problem is not too many people in prison, it's that we coddle too many people in prison. Prison is not a rehabilitation facilty, it's a place where people are punished. It should be as unpleasant as possible.