For no particular reason at all, except, well, this one English assignment, I was pondering America's prison system. Just thinking about its virtues and its faults. And then, like a flash, there was this one specific statistic, once filed away in the recesses of my mind, that really struck me with full force. Sixty-seven percent of former inmates released from U.S. state prisons in 1994 were back in jail within three years, according to a study conducted by the Justice Department's Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS). Well, if inmates aren't used as free labor, and they aren't learning their lessons in jail, what ARE they doing? I figure they're eating, sleeping, and entertaining themselves for free without the pressures of the outside world to bother them until they can get out, commit another crime, and get back in again. After coming to this conclusion, I was flabbergasted (yes, flabbergasted) that criminals weren't undergoing a comprehensive rehabilitation program in order to address the problem and prevent criminals from repeating their mistakes, because, obviously, free food and housing wasn't doing the trick. Now, I'm under the impression myself that most crimes are caused by deeper problems than just innate evilness. Sometimes those problems are socioeconomic, and sometimes they are mental. If we would take the time to figure out why Johnny likes to steal cares, and we address the problem, then maybe that's one less bad apple to worry about. Repeat offenders aren't my cup of tea. When they go IN jail, I expect that they come back OUT without an agenda to repeat the same crime and do a better job of not getting caught. Maybe then our prison facilities won't be so crowded (over 2,000,000 incarcerated). Oh, and check out this list of statistics for more: http://usgovinfo.about.com/library/weekly/aa060702a.htm