America is number one again this year. For college graduates? No.

For being the leader in green energy producers? No.
We don't have money to invest in those noble goals.
But we do have plenty of money to imprison over two million Americans every year. Over 60 % of those in prison are for non- violent crimes.
America is 'number one' in building prisons and imprisoning more people than any country in the World.
The United States has 5% of the World's population and has 25% of the World's prisoners locked behind bars.
This number has no correlation to our crime rate being lower.

Our prison population has grown 700% since the 1970s.

Why?

Money. Profit. More specifically, prisons for profit.

Parole officers and probation officers are paid about $50,000 a year in salary.

They can handle 48 parolees on their case load but because there aren't enough of them, they're asked to handle 250- five times what they can handle and give the attention to these men and women to be sure they find a job, enter a job training program and integrate back into our society.

Probation and parole officers find it's easier to 'violate' 4/5s of their case load and send them back to prison because they have too many cases to handle effectively.
It's not so much different than what we ask teachers to do these days.
Teachers have many more students in their classrooms than they can teach effectively.

Why? Teachers have been cut to 'save us money'. Ironic, yes? Save money in what way? Shouldn't we see educating our children the best we can as an investment? So we're saving short term, but costing ourselves our children's future.
We push more kids into smaller and smaller classrooms.
Some wonder why public schools often have difficulty achieving the results we desire. Then those same people call for charter schools- 'for profit' schools.
Too much and too many. That's what we expect from our teachers. And that's what we ask of parole and probation officers.
Teachers can't send students to jail to reduce the over crowding in their classrooms. Thank god.
But probation officers can.
Ever wonder why someone gets 'violated' for missing a meeting with their officer?
Too much and too many.
It's easier to violate a probationer than work with them to integrate them back into a productive role.
The cost to society is enormous.
The cost to imprison the two hundred 'too many' probationers on every probation officer's case load is $40,000 a year times 200 men and that equals eight million dollars!
Hiring 4 more probation officers to take those two hundred probationers? 4 times $50,000 or $200,000.
So what do we do?
We send them to jail for nothing more than not showing up on time to their meeting or smoking a joint.
Does this make sense to you?
Well, it does if you own the prison that needs prisoners in order to profit.
And who pays that prison owner's profit?
We, the taxpayers.
It's time to rethink America's Prison Industrial Complex.
When Congressmen make decisions about prisons based on donations from prison lobbyists rather than what makes economic sense for their constituents, we all suffer and pay.
Prisoners with time and wasted and unproductive lives and the taxpayer with taxes that could be spent to educate our children better by hiring more teachers and building better schools.
The Caging of America- The Moral Scandal of American Life
http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/atlarge/2012/01/30/120130crat_atlarge_gopnik#ixzz24NU9JsiX

http://ireport.cnn.com/docs/DOC-832044