Why does the U.S. spend so much on the jail system?

[Jedoro]

I like how I think, too.

But yeah, I mean druggies, thieves, and the other petty criminals haven't really ruined anyone else's life too much through direct action, and they can be rehabilitated from that, or at least learn not to do it again.

Exactly, people like that could have a good chance at learning from their mistakes and fixing their lives.

Drug addicts get to see how their life was ruined while they shot up, smoked, etc., and then they get a chance to fix where they went wrong and go on with their life. Hell, I'd be an ex-pothead's therapist. I know a few, and they're pretty cool.

But a murderer, he'd be dead if it was up to me.

 

[Amnestic]

Like some states have life sentences for possessing 1 gram of weed on the second conviction.

That's an issue with laws, not the jail system.

Amnestic, you should read the post fully before going off quoting. you may have skipped the line that answers all of your problems with my opinion

Care to point it out because I can't see it.

And if you offer the "It's just an opinion" rebuttal, please understand that rational opinions tend to be based on something tangible.

 

[DeathArtist]

sure thing. it comes right after -{instead of just sitting around all day}- and it has to do with the money that would be saved if we didn't spend so much on inmates for their sake

 

[Seydaman]

Because the authorities still believe that prisoners have rights, and that they should be rehabilitated. As well as the huge population of prisoners in the US. And the amount of business prisons generate.

Wait, what? Prisoners generate buisness? But how, don't they just eat, sleep and umm... stand around I guess? I don't know what they do for entertainment in prisons.

business? furniture,beds,plumbing, food, electricity. now for every inmate

 

[park92]

why dont you just have inmates work and after they've worked enough they should be freed but if they dont work they should just be whipped or something

 

[Neonbob]

Just work them to death - it's not like we'll ever run out of convicted serial rapists or murderers or anything.

We could put them on a hamster wheel and have them run to make electricity, too!
Good use of resources in my mind.

Maybe we spend so much on it because we have tons of people who are incarcerated? And you do need to keep some kind of standards when holding people with access to lawyers...

 

[Worgen]

because we have this stupid idea that tossing someone in prison for any reason will reform them into golden members of sociaty. really its the war on drugs, we tend to toss ppl in prison for log terms for simply having an illegal drug and since we do that alot, we have a ton of people in prison a good number of which really dont deserve to be in prison but reguardless we end up having to support them which costs money. among other reasons Im too lazy to list atm. Oh and the reason we dont do the prison worker program thing more is because ppl ***** about it "I dont want to prisoner working that might be escaping to come kill my family and children who only read the bible and dont know they have sex organs"

 

[TheFacelessOne]

You know, I think we should start doing things like in Bad Company.

Throw the criminals on the front lines!

Only the ones that would be sentenced life, or death penalty.

Otherwise, use them to help the community some how. Clean up streets...I don't know.

 

[DeathArtist]

giving serial killers guns and letting the loose in a foreign land doesn't exactly sound like a great idea.

 

[axia777]

Because Americans are to conservative in nature. We put more people in jail for drugs than any other country in the world. If we just released every pot offender the jails would be half empty, or there about.

 

[JoshasorousRex]

Because the authorities still believe that prisoners have rights, and that they should be rehabilitated. As well as the huge population of prisoners in the US. And the amount of business prisons generate.

Wait, what? Prisoners generate buisness? But how, don't they just eat, sleep and umm... stand around I guess? I don't know what they do for entertainment in prisons.

Think about all the aspects of what goes in to setting up a prison; construction (builders, welders, electricians, gas supply, water supply, architects, engineers, lawyers, sure there's a hell of a lot more, and all their suppliers, and everything that goes into those); food (chefs, transportation, their suppliers, ovens, pots, pans, the food itself, plates etc.); and I'm too tired to go into further details, but I assume you'll get the basic gist from that.

Ah I see now. I never thought of it that way