Americans and Prison

“Every ten or eleven people that you meet, someone is going to either know someone in prison, has been in prison with a record, or you met them and they are going off to prison,” says Michael Stoll, co-author of Why are so Many Americans in Prison?

ReasonTV’s Tracy Oppenheimer sat down with Stoll to discuss why incarceration rates and associated prison costs in America have exploded in the last few decades, and possible ways to reform the system.

“That increase [in incarceration rates] that we saw, 80 percent of that through our analysis, was driven by policy changes, not by the increased criminality of citizens in the United States,” says Stoll. “One of the things that I think needs to be done—and we know that this is politically difficult—is there has to be reform in sentencing.”

The big reason so many go to jail is MONEY!!! It’s always about money. The courts can impose fines for every offense you are charged with, and if a charge is reduced, say like a felony to a misdemeanor, they charge for reducing the charge.

Also you are charged a daily rate for being in jail, and another charge if they have to dispense your medication. There’s also a charge if your toilet stops up.

The charges are endless.

 

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