Is This Justice?

CRIMINAL INJUSTICE

The social system that most needs reform in this country today is Justice. The standards that need to be applied are constitutional and sensible. Some argue that warehousing criminals should be avoided. That is nonsense. That is exactly what is required for those who have not earned back privileges. The standard in the case of whether too many are being imprisoned is, "are there any unconvicted criminals, or are any going free without having served their entire sentence?" If any of the convicted have not served their pronounced sentence, then they have not kept them long enough. If the excuse is there isn't enough prison space, then build more.

Two most common excuses for not building the needed number of prisons are, "no one wants to pay for them or have them in their back yard". The reason the voters are unwilling to pay is because, they are unhappy with how the system works, ineffective police, weak judges, short sentences, early parole, corruption, and soft prisons. If they worked like law-abiding citizen expected they would gladly pay for them.

The prison location problem is easily solved when you get special property interests out of the location equation. A way that could work would be locate all prisons on Federal or state property away from communities and commercial property interests. In the west alone there are billions of acres in this category. The land could be made available cheaply helping to offset the remote construction costs. Other costs would be greater, but this isn't a cost cutting proposal. It's an effort to get and keep convicted criminals behind bars. Plenty of cost cutting opportunities exist elsewhere in the criminal injustice system.