Imprisonment is usually justified by appeals to one of two
philosophies: protecting the public or rehabilitating the
prisoner. By either standard, however, the evidence is
overwhelming that prisons do not work. According to the
Department of Justice ( Just Us ), those states that have the
highest budget for law enforcement - including courts, prisons,
probation and parole - also have the highest levels of crime. If
there is any empirically established relationship between crime
and imprisonment, it is that prisons foster crime. Contrary to
popular belief, the seriousness of a crime is not the most
crucial element in predicting who goes to prison and who does
not. Prison population can be linked to poverty. In fact, the
U.S. social policies of the 1980s and 1990s caused an
unprecedented increase in the number of people living in poverty
and widened the gap between the incomes and living standards of
the rich and poor. And throughout this period, prison
populations grew rapidly. With budgets slashed for every t