3 More Articles

http://online.wsj.com/articles/federal-prison-population-drops-1411469837

This article claims that federal prions are actually shrinking due to lesser sentencing for non-violent offenses. However, this comes with an uptick of incarceration at the state level. It seems that while removing a lot of the mandatory sentencing that comes with non-violent crimes reduces the amount of people in federal jail, they just end up with shorter sentences in a state jail. This is not a good solution.

http://www.economist.com/news/leaders/21583680-eric-holders-ideas-lockig-up-fewer-americans-are-welcome-do-not-go-far-enough-one

This article has some good statistics on the US prisons. The United States has 5% of the world population but 25% of the total prisoners in the world. It costs us $80 billion a year to maintain this, or nearly $35,000 dollars per inmate. Federal prisons have grown by 800% since 1980. These statistics fit in nicely with the other information I gathered.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/11/05/us-prison-population_n_4214626.html

This article again gives some interesting statistics. There are more prisoners than school teachers in the US. It also says that the amount of prisoners is in decline since its peak in 2009. It again cites that many are trying to do away with the mandatory sentencing that many drugs had. I agree with that, but I think that the root of the problem is the addiction to drugs that keeps people going back to jail. While I agree that we should eliminate harsh mandatory sentencing for non-violent crimes we should also focus on rehabilitation.