Prison Population Timeline in the US

Wow. That is a lot of drugs.

Alot less people are following the rules nowadays.

It took about 20 years to start seeing the damage from LBJ's great society and it's only getting worse.

Slapahoe's solution to our growing prison problems-

1. No sentence should be longer than 18 years. In 18 years we go from a crying infant to a completely independent human being; so that should be enough time for someone to change who they are. If you're willing to throw someone in prison for longer than that, then I say just strap them into Old Sparky and flip the switch.

2. Prison shouldn't be an opportunity for them to form gangs and such; work them from can see to can't. They should be so physically exhausted that all they want to do when they get back to the barracks is sleep. Prison should resemble the first 45 minutes of Full Metal Jacket, minus the guns.

I know some will just fold their arms and say "I ain't doing that." That's fine, don't feed them, don't clothe them, make them sleep outside in the weather ... eventually they'll either come around or die.

3. After a suitable length of time of the intensive "physical training" (however long it takes to mentally break someone), if they've been behaved, allow them to spend a couple of days a week indoors, without someone yelling in their ear constantly, as long as they spend that time learning a trade, getting a basic education, taking a civics course - so they may learn their place in society, and so on. As they do well, reward them with more study days and fewer physical training days.

4. Towards the end of their sentence (last six months or so) allow the prisoners to live in an environment that more closely resembles the outside. They should see what it is like to go to work, get a normal paycheck, pay bills, and spend their extra money/free time how they choose. Let the parole board observe them during this period to determine if they've learned enough to safely re enter society.

5. Anyone sent to prison for a gang related crime should not be released into the same region from whence they came, and no two members of the same gang should ever be housed together.

Initially thought to be a wonder drug, in the late 19th century cocaine was a key ingredient in medicines used to combat asthma, dysentery, sore nipples, syphilis and – ironically – to fight opium addiction.

Prohibition, however, created both a black market and a certain chic, the results of which remain with us now. From that point on, whatever temporary high cocaine gave to its users, its dealers got an incomparably greater financial buzz.

The stupendous riches to be made, and their attendant cost in crime, murder and blighted lives, means that the U.S. now spends $40?billion annually on its ‘war against drugs’.



Alcohol and Nicotine...America's biggest problem when it comes to health crisis and drain on healthcare and costs to other Americans.

Cocaine and Weed - almost neglible. No effect on taxpayers and health care systems but for the war on drugs. The only effect is over-crowding prisons - which takes money out of your pocket if you are a tax-payer.

You are being fleeced for no reason...when banning of alcohol would decrease crime and taxes 10X more than "illicit drugs."

Forget prisons. Send them all to Mexico and use the cash savings to big a bigger wall along the border. With a moat.

It's not like they had any methodology of catching criminals in the 1920's. If you committed a crime, no one saw it, good job, you got away with it.

Additionally, our population and culture are different now than then.