The US has the highest rate of incarceration in the world with more than 2 million inmates. Unfortunately, the current thinking within criminal justice has dropped rehabilitation in favor of sequestration and retribution.Prisons in the US are in great need of reform according to the following principles:Prisoners are subjected to inhumane conditions - Oftentimes inmates are prey to physical abuse, excessive disciplinary force, overcrowding, double-bunking, prolonged isolation, and inadequate access to physical and mental healthcare. Prisons tend to enforce and encourage crime - Violent, agressive, and criminal behavior is standard among inmates and such patterns are therefore reinforced....

The US has the highest rate of incarceration in the world with more than 2 million inmates. Unfortunately, the current thinking within criminal justice has dropped rehabilitation in favor of sequestration and retribution.

Prisons in the US are in great need of reform according to the following principles:

1. Prisoners are subjected to inhumane conditions - Oftentimes inmates are prey to physical abuse, excessive disciplinary force, overcrowding, double-bunking, prolonged isolation, and inadequate access to physical and mental healthcare.
   
2. Prisons tend to enforce and encourage crime - Violent, agressive, and criminal behavior is standard among inmates and such patterns are therefore reinforced.
   
3. Recidivism rates are extremely high - More than two-thirds of released prisoners are re-arrested within three years.
   
4. Prisons are exceedingly expensive - taxpayers pay on average $40 billion per year on the US prison system (or roughly $20,000 per year per inmate).
   
5. Treatment programs function far better than incarceration when dealing with drug offenses.
   
6. The current prison system perpetuates racial divides and inequalities.
   
7. "Three strike" laws lead to life inprisonment for nonviolent crimes.
   
8. Prisoners are simply not properly rehabilitated to productively engage the society into which they are released.

In conclusion - It is simply not helpful, healthy, or economical to pour billions of taxpayer dollars into a broken prison system that not only fails to rehabilitate its inmates but may very well reinforce violence, racism, addiction and even crime, itself.  The American public should demand a change in the current thinking behind prisons, treatment, and rehabilitation.

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