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It's an appealing story to think that the main reason the courts and prisons are so overburdened is personal drug use. Since most (of us) agree that rehabilitat

It's an appealing story to think that the main reason the courts and prisons are so overburdened is personal drug use. Since most (of us) agree that rehabilitation or laissez-faire is better than imprisonment, we get to solve another huge problem by adopting our preferred solution. Unfortunately, they're not particularly complicated cases, and drug offenders only make up like a sixth of the prison population. So, it'd help, but the USA would still be a huge outlier internationally, let alone among developed Western countries.

CaptSpify 9y ago
> It's an appealing story to think that the main reason the courts and prisons are so overburdened is personal drug use. I don't believe this at all (simply due to lack of evidence), which is why I phrased it as a question. Additionally, it's just an example, in which I tried to be clear that my personal beliefs make me biased in. Feel free to substitute your own "useless prosecution" in it's place |;) That being said, 1/6 seems like a pretty hefty amount.
TheCoelacanth 9y ago
It's a good first step. Other steps we should take are to make it easier (and cheaper) for people who are awaiting trial to get out on bail if they aren't a flight risk and to cut sentence lengths across the board to be more in line with other countries.