Why is the United States the world’s leading jailer?

This country is supposedly a civilized, first world, democratic nation with lofty ideals of human rights and liberty. However, in 1980, 500,000 were in American jails. In 2007, 2.3 million were incarcerated. That is an increase of four-and-one-half times. The population went from about 225 million to 300 million in that time.

That is 715 people per 100,000 incarcerated.

The United States leads the world in that category.

Second place is Russia at 584. Such bastions of freedom as Iran, China, Libya, Syria and Belarus trail behind.

To be fair, there is no data on North Korea. If there were data, then North Korea would be far ahead of the United States. I find it hard to take comfort in that. No government wants a comparison with North Korea.

What is the cause of this?

The three strike laws have led to a ballooning in incarceration. Yet, that is not enough of an explanation. About 20-25% of the prisoners are incarcerated for drug-related crimes. Add in the ready availability of guns and the formula is set.

Those three reasons bear the overwhelming explanation why America is filled with criminals.

It is either that or Americans are by nature disorderly, deviant, non-conforming troublemakers.

I don’t buy that.

Property and violent crimes have decreased since the 1990′s. Three strikes laws have helped achieve that. Nevertheless, overly exuberant convictions have created crowded prisons and an aging prison population. Some people are in for life only for a series of more or less petty crimes that crossed into felonies.

The time bomb is that aging prison population. Taxpayers are on the hook for a massive medical bill for prisoners.

When nearly a quarter of the people in prison are there on drugs, there is something wrong. Does anyone really want to pay $25,000 to 40,000 a year to house someone who wants to sit in a corner and shoot up heroin?

Properly designed drug rehabilitation centers and halfway houses can house these prisoners for less than that. Perhaps, they might even get a few people off the habit. Prisons were not designed for that.

Of course, drugs could be decriminalized or even legalized and reduce the cost even more. The price of making recreational drugs illegal is enormous compared to allowing them to be used. Alcohol and prohibition resolved that question once and for all.

Most interestingly, are the gun death rates. It is not a coincidence that the states with the lowest gun death rates, like Maine, also have the fewest prisoners. In 2004, Maine’s incarceration rate was 148 per 100,000. Minnesota followed with 171 and Rhode Island at 175. Both of those states also had low gun-related deaths.

On the other hand, Louisiana had an incarceration rate of 816 per 100,000. That was the highest in the country. That state also had the highest gun-related death rate.

It time for some serious prison reform.

Gun laws and educational programs need to be made that mirror the more successful and workable laws of the low-crime states in the country. Third strike laws need to be fine-tuned for less serious offenders and aged inmates. Finally, drugs laws need to be revamped so that people who have an addiction problem are not put in jail.

If the United States doesn’t fix these problems, it’s going to have an expensive problem on its hands. Let me reword that – an even more expensive problem.

There are better places for taxes to go than maintaining prisons for America’s neglected problems. The real question is if Americans have the political will to change something that has been broken for a very long time.