It’s been a summer of violent and gut-wrenching crime reports in America. From execution-style shootings in Newark to New Orleans and Oakland and home invasion in the leafy suburbs of Connecticut, murders are making big headlines. But while the killings goes on, America’s prisons are jammed.
Crime peaked in 1992 in this country, while prison populations have continued to explode. The United States now has the highest incarceration rate in the world - many times higher than peer nations. And now, murder rates in American cities have jumped again.
The USA is a world champ in both crime and punishment. What’s wrong with this picture?
Listen to an On Point discussion about America's packed prisons while murder rages on in the streets.
With murder in the headlines, do you rest easy at night knowing we have the highest incarceration rate in the world? Is it working?
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Comments: 7
A radical reworking of drug policy would help a whole bunch. First step is to take the profit out of the drug business by legalizing everything. It would be easier to deal with the problem of addiction, which wouldn't go away any more than addiction to alcohol did in Prohibition, if we weren't spending so much money on incarceration. It would also force organized crime to look for other revenue sources.