It's being reported this morning (by WGCL TV out of Atlanta, GA) "federal prosecutors are offering Falcons quarterback Michael Vick a plea deal on dogfighting charges that would require Vick to serve at least one year in prison. Sources have told CBS 46 that Vick has until 9 a.m. Friday to accept a deal or face new charges in a superseding indictment".

What is our fascination with sending people to prison? In what way has that been shown to be the best method of preventing a person from repeating their crime, or to discourage others to not engage in such behavior?

Per capita crime in the U.S. has increased only marginally over the past several decades. Yet our incarceration rates have skyrocketed over the same period, putting us in the ugly position of leading the world in per capita incarcerations. We have five to ten times as many inmates per citizen as most other developed countries around the world.

WTF?

The greatest nation on the face of the earth? We incarcerate more than 5.6 million of our citizens (# of citizens who have been incarcerated at some point during a given year)? That's an incarceration rate of one in thirty-seven (about 3% of our adult population). And this rate has been streaking upwards for several decades. Our prisons are estimated to be constructed to handle just over one-half of that number. The over-crowding conditions are making prisons no better than the gulags of the old Soviet Union, where basic human standards of care are not being met - let alone efforts to genuinely rehabilitate offenders.

THIS IS A NATIONAL DISGRACE, one that we the people perpetuate.

Prosecutors get elected to lucrative local offices based largely upon their ability to market their "toughness on crime" - which almost always means their conviction rate and their ability to boast of long sentences for cases they've prosecuted. Judges, in many locales, are elected in much the same way. That's what the electorate want to hear, that criminals are being put into jail, and often.

And now folks are likely feeling good that Michael Vick faces more than a trivial stint in jail.

What is this INCREDIBLE investment in one method of punishment/rehab buying us? Little if anything that I can see. From 1987 to 1995, state government expenditures on prisons increased by 30% while spending on higher education decreased by 18%. Worse, it may well be hardening criminals - moving them to a point where a life of crime is all that seems feasible for them. Even WORSE, it may be moving us further from a nation deserving of respect, and to a nation characterized by shallowness, impulsiveness, a convenient blindness to the suffering of others.

Just one more thing deserving of your increased attention and action (at the very least, pay attention to who you elect to the offices of Prosecutor and Judge - typically Superior Court Judge, although ANY elected judge - and see what your mayoral and gubernatorial candidates track records are on this issue too).

How will sending Vick to prison help society? How will it impact Vick? How does sentencing marijuana smokers, or vandals, etc. to stout prison terms help society or impact the violators? Is yours a gut reaction to those questions, or a decently well thought out response, based on a review of available literature?

Start scratching the surface:

An Admittedly Left Leaning Article by Human Rights Watch

Bi-Partisan Report, including other interesting links