It's a numbers game really. At present the numbers show that prison makes people worse. I'll add my own anecdata and say that I've seen people come out of prison much worse than they went in.

And, if, for $75,000 per person per annum we can't work towards better outcomes, then I think we can agree something is very wrong with the current approach.

Whether or not it makes them worse, it keeps them away from everyone else where they can do serious damage.

If you want to fix what is wrong you start by not labeling people "felons" for life--change every law so that when someone gets out they get their full rights restored--voting, right to bear arms, all of it. And do away with sex offender registries and all of it. If they re-offend, put them away for good.

> California sent them to Arizona so that they could go to a trade school. All their needs were covered, they just needed to complete the program. Instead the failed out and then went on a crime spree in their new home state. I'm sure it was a very cost effective solution for CA but I'm not sure about society as a whole.

The problem is identification; we can't identify which people will end up being "good guys" or "bad guys" after any form of prison or community work. There are some extreme cases where you can make the determination(although beware the slippery slope of discrimination that seeps in..), but for the rest, what do you do? This is a genuine question. Jailing people is both costly and doesn't seem to have a positive effect on their life prospects. Many people that go into jail for a minor offense end up incapable of finding a job(felon status) or a place in society(everyone left them and moved on) and they turn to crime and re-offend.

I agree that this doesn't contain "the" solution, but it's a good way to shine the light that our current solution isn't working either. Prison serves as a "out of sight, out of mind" choice and few people concern themselves with what happens to inmates once they try to reintegrate into society. If we're going to continue jailing people, then we should also look to mitigate the adverse effects - look for ways to integrate people after they serve their time, look into reducing the number of offenses you can be jailed for, etc.

I would be legit interested in some data on mandatory trade school v. traditional prison. You're anecdote doesn't look good but lets at least give the idea a fair shake.

Isn't an inordinately large percentage of US prison population due to fairly minor drug offences?

I would think the argument is that fewer people need to be imprisoned for crimes that don't really negatively affect society as much as sending them to prison does.

No, it's like 10-15% at the state level. It's higher at the federal level but those guys are in there for distribution not getting caught with a joint.