The justice system in America is the harshest just system of the developed countries. Around 2.3million people in America are in prison. That is almost in every one hundred Americans are in prison. And one in every 331 adults is under supervision. This justice system in America is hard on criminals but there are two flaws. The drug problem and the response to it,the justice system puts too many people behind bars for way to long.
More prisoners are locked away for drug violations than all violent crimes combined. It used to be perfectly legal for anyone to walk into a store and buy heroin or cocaine. Then the progressives took over in the early 20th century and began waging a war on drugs, which blossomed under Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal, when marijuana became nationally illegal. This method is also redundant and ineffective in reducing drug abuse. And it leads to more crime, gang warfare, judicial and police corruption, and all the other problems that accompanied alcohol prohibition. People who have committed no crime against person or property should be released from the jails and prisons. These people include drug offenders, sex workers, those in possession of illegal guns, and anyone else who has hurt and threatened no one, whose only offense was to violate a victimless crime statute.
Nation-wide attention was focused on so-called three-strikes laws in 1994 when California voters approved an initiative mandating prison terms of 25-years-to-life for defendants convicted of a third felony On one hand many of the defendants sent to jail under three-strikes laws are non-violent repeat offenders. The original intent of the law was the stop violent criminals, but the result has been that criminals with a history of minor offenses, such as petty theft or drug dealing, are being sent away for longer terms than criminals who commit violent acts. The prison population has grown so much that most are already filled beyond capacity and many more prisons need to be built; tax payers will have to foot the bill. Three-strike laws are not effective crime prevention measures, they are unnecessarily harsh sentencing guidelines that punish harmless petty criminals and overcrowd our prisons. On the other hand if a criminal does not reform after two felony convictions, it is unlikely that he or she ever will. Three-strike laws are effective because they target these repeat offenders who have proven unable to change their criminal behavior. The mandated 25 years-to-life sentences for third time offenders keep repeat criminals off the street, and the threat of such a long sentence may stop a two-time offenders from committing a third felony. Tough-on-crime laws like this have contributed to the nation-wide drop in crime rates over the past decade. Three-strike laws can help reduce the prison population by serving as a deterrent to potential repeat criminals.
• California has convicted 4,468 offenders on third strikes since 1994.
• There are 2 million people behind bars in the U.S., including local jails--twice as many as a decade ago.
• Approximately 2,700 "third strikers" received at least a 25 years-to-life sentence for nonviolent and non-serious offenses.
• In California, nearly 75 percent of 2nd strikes and 50 percent of 3rd strikes are for nonviolent and non-serious offenses.
• The most common charges leveled against third-strike criminals are drugs, theft and burglary.
http://www.breakpoint.org/commentaries/12395-prison-overcrowding-and-public-safety
http://www.independent.org/newsroom/article.asp?id=1775
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