On average it costs approx $20-26K a year to incarcerate an individual. Look at all these offenders who are serving long sentences for drug related offenses. Remember the 5 years for 5 grams of crack laws from the 80's? Can anyone tell me that it's in society's best interest to spend $100K of taxpayers money to lock somebody up for 5 years for drug possession? A somebody who will be worse off and less able to cope with the rigors of life when he/she gets out and thus likely to re-offend? The only individuals who should be incarcerated and thus incapacitated for long periods of time (if not indefinitely) should be those who commit very violent offenses (murderers, sex offenders, habitual violent offenders).

If the public really had any conception of how much money is spent and wasted in the prison industry, and how ineffective many of our laws are at actually deterring crime, they might actually wake up to what's going on. Billions of dollars spent treating the symptoms of larger societal issues & problems and absolutely no attempt to treat the causes.