Jail System Needs Fixing

As prisons become overcrowded due to non-violent and victimless drug charges, the government is forced to rethink mandatory minimum sentences and the ineffectiveness of the three strikes system. State and local prisons are becoming overcrowded, some prisons operating at 33 percent above capacity, while jails are operating below maximum occupancy. New inmates incarcerated for drug charges are pushing violent predators out to the streets on early release, probation, and parole. While these non-violent convicts are incarcerated they are receiving an education in hard crime and the problem of addiction is not being amply addressed.

The latest BJS report listed over 2 million men and women incarcerated making the total increase of 57,600 more inmates than state, local and federal officials had on the same day a year earlier. States and the federal prisons held 1.3 million prisoners while local municipal and county jails housed over 650,000 inmates. The incarcerated prison population approached 2.1 million convicts in the United States in 2003, according to the Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS), the largest increase in prison population in four years. 

The number of state and federal convicts grew 2.9 percent, the most massive increase in four years. Federal prisons increased by 5.4 percent, and state prisoners increased by 2.6 percent. During these times, local jail populations increased by 3.9 percent. The incarceration rate of state and federal criminals has continued to rise as the war on drugs rages on. One of every 140 U.S. residents was incarcerated in prison or jail with higher rates among minorities and the impoverished.