Princeton or Prison?

It costs a lot of money to house prisoners in cells when the idea is no longer reformation, but rather separation and dissonant punishment:

One year at Princeton University: $37,000. One year at a New Jersey state prison: $44,000.

Prison and college “are the two most divergent paths one can take in life,” Joseph Staten, an info-graphic researcher with Public Administration, says. Whereas one is a positive experience that increases lifetime earning potential, the other is a near dead end, which is why Staten found it striking that the lion’s share of government funding goes toward incarceration.

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Is Campsfield House the UK Gitmo?

In an alarming, but necessary, report from Oxford, it appears the UK have their very own Gitmo-like forever detainee camp called “Campsfield House.”

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Solitary Confinement Creates the Worst of Us

If we still believe in the United States that the purpose of prison is to rehabilitate both mind and body — should we ever be putting people in solitary confinement for years on end?  Should an entire prison term ever consist of 23-hour a day lockdown with one man in a single cell?

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Paying Your Way Out of Doing Hard Time

The New York Times reported this week you can serve jail time in California via a “Pay to Stay Upgrade” if you have enough money and if your crime is relatively minor. Convicted drunk drivers are welcome. For $82.00 USD a day you can buy a private room in a “jail facility” with a regular door and the “right to bring an iPod or computer or cellphone:”

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Wild West American Justice

America is a country that loves to punish.  We punish foreign nations.  We discriminately punish our own.  This week, The Economist rightfully flays the ongoing — and failed — notion of Wild West American Justice where the punishment rarely fits the crime.

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Why We Write Carceral Nation

“The Economist” just published a fantastic analysis of the American justice system in a piece called — “Rough Justice in America: Too Many Laws, Too Many Prisoners” — and when one in 99 citizens is doing time, we need to re-examine the social fabric of our nation and start asking what went wrong with crime deterrence and inmate rehabilitation.  We write this Carceral Nation blog to help unskew injustice in a dangerous world.

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