It is really quite sad that we, the United States, place into prison more than 2 million of our own citizens, and then allow these prisoners to be abused, raped and beaten by other prisoners. Some serious things need to be done to our prisons. Now, I have never been to prison, and I hope to never go, but from what I have heard from the media and others, the situation is quite precarious. According to the BBC, more than 1 million of the prisoners are in on non-violent drug offences. Instead of jailing people on drug offenses, besides selling, we should charge them increasing fines until the 3rd time, where they spend the night in jail. Each time after that, they will spend 1 more night in prison. This would cut significantly our overcrowding of jails, and would put our citizens back on the street. It would also reduce the number of black Americans in jail, which is racially higher than the number of whites. This is due to injustice of our police officers, but as that is the nature of their business, and this is not really a race issue, the best way to handle it is to reduce the jail populations for non-violent offenders. In addition, the sentences for violent crimes should be increased, especially if involving a gun. Finally, we should whip down on the prisoners and prevent them from misbehaving and abusing other prisoners. We need to let them know that kind of behavior is not acceptable and we need to place offenders in solitary confinement, limit their food or prevent them from having benefits given to other prisoners until they can control themselves. Prisoner abuse needs to be a crime, and we need to place people in jail longer if they misbehave.
