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"That concerns me - especially if they're high on meth."

He does kind of have a point. Our priorities are a little wacky. I work in the criminal justice system and I see so many going to prison for low level drug crimes, often on really long sentences, and I see so many others getting off relatively easy on what seem to me to be much worse crimes. For a lot of meth users it seems that the worst crime they commit is using meth. Then you have the more hardcore types who do things like commit petty thefts, write hot checks, forge checks, and/or sell a little dope to other dopers. Then there is the even smaller group who do the same things as the first two groups and worse. These guys are also burglarizing houses, committing major thefts, maybe even robbing and assaulting people, and in rare instances one of them might even kill someone. All too often though it seems like the low level drug offenders are the ones getting the major prison time while a lot of the really bad guys are getting off relatively easy.

I just don't understand that. Our prisons are limited resources and they're overflowing. I'd much rather see them put to use locking up people who are out there stealing and robbing, breaking into homes, forging checks, and on and on and on, rather than all these low level drug offenders. The only thing prison seems to be really good at is keeping the really dangerous people off the streets and away from the rest of us for a while. I think we should focus more on the crimes where there is a victim every time. Lock the guy up who burglarizes houses so he doesn't burglarize yours, and don't just stick him in on a sentence where he'll parole out in a few months, leave him in there a long time, especially when it comes to repeat offenders. Odds are these guys will burglarize houses or commit some other serious crimes with victims when they gets out, so the longer they stay the better. And then if there really is much to deterrence, which I think is overrated, at least the greatest deterrent effect would be on those who contemplate committing the types of crimes they know without a doubt will hurt innocent people. Fill our prisons up to where they are overflowing with low level drug offenders though and we can't do that. There's no room in the inn.

To me this doesn't make a lot of sense because we aren't protecting ourselves very well from those we know in all likelihood will hurt innocent people again. The statistics bear this out. The vast majority of these guys will re-offend. Something like 70% of those released from prison will be rearrested on new felony charges within three years from their release. It just seems logical to me that we would want to keep those we know have robbed folks and that sort of thing locked up as long as we can. Druggies are more likely than non druggies to commit more serious crimes, but a lot of them never will commit serious crimes. If they do, hammer them hard. But let's focus our limited prison resources on those we know are out there committing crimes in which each offense has actual victims, because these people are a much bigger threat to us.