"Every time you stop a school, you will have to build a jail. What you gain at one end you lose at the other. It's like feeding a dog on his own tail. It won't fatten the dog." - speech, 11/23/1900

Common sense is very uncommon these days.

You're going to need more jails. This is a nice sentiment, but to operationalize it, we have to start seeing 5 years or less as a pretty good punishment for MOST offenses. We have to start thinking about alternative sentences and restorative justice. There's no getting around that. Right now, we're at "20 years!" "30 years!" "Life without parole!!!" for a remarkable number of offenders, even on a putatively liberal board. Look at pretty much any thread here that discusses crime. You can't untangle "victims rights" discourse from "private prison" policy and "more jails policy." They are all of a piece.

But I know what I am. I am a bleeding heart liberal and in the minority. I don't think an 18 year old poor kid armed robber should get 20 years in state prison. That's crazy to me. But that's the general drift of the matter, even on a liberal board. Hell, half the people who support Sanders will froth at a crime story and demand the maximum punishment imaginable.

People want to believe it's just "non-violent drug offenders" being railroaded, etc.. These people are fucking stupid and wrong. You have to give up punishment fetish for a wide range of offenders (including violent offenders) if you want to effect prison reform. But that starts first in your head and heart, not "out there."

... used to say the things and REALLY mean them, that now we have to listen to a Democratic Socialist to hear?

Simple, common sense, and very much for the people. Yet I get told over and over, by people on this very forum, Senator Bernie Sanders is "unelectable." I guess to be "electable," you have to be a corporate sellout.

If they don't have a plan to deal with this problem they've no business running on the Democrat line
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10026438646#post9

We cannot afford another corporate Democrat or Republican in the White House.

This corporate Democratic administration has continued and expanded the malignant Bush agenda of attaching a profit motive to the caging of human beings, and turning the prison system of this nation, and the justice system in impoverished communities, into an exploitative business opportunity for predatory corporations.

This is the malignancy of the corporate money that floods the halls of our government and both parties now.

It's a vicious agenda. It's the corporate agenda. And we need to unite to stop it from both parties.

Poor minorities are worthless to corporations on the street. In prison they can bring in $40,000/yr
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10023368969

Poor Land in Jail as Companies Add Huge Fees for Probation
http://www.democraticunderground.com/1014158005

The Caging of America - Why do we lock up so many people
http://www.democraticunderground.com/1002226110

The Obama administration is aggressively growing private prisons
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10022568681

Obama's 2013 budget: One area of marked growth, the prison industrial complex
http://sync.democraticunderground.com/1002392306

Obama selects the owner of a private prison consulting firm as the new Director of the United States Marshals Service (USMS)
http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2010/12/mars-d03.html

Private prison corporations move up on list on federal contractors, receiving BILLIONS
http://www.nationofchange.org/president-obama-s-incarcernation-1335274655

Federal Private Prison Populations Grew by 784% in 10 Year Span
http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=4362184

Prison Labor Booms As Unemployment Remains High; Companies Reap Benefits
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/12/10/prison-labor_n_2272036.html

Private Prison Corporation's Letters to Shareholders Reveal Industry's Tactics: Profiting from Human Incarceration
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10022665091

Financial growth of private prison industry...Profiting from caging humans.

http://l.yimg.com/bt/api/res/1.2/BshteP8i282pcaeH8pdUsA--/YXBwaWQ9eW5ld3M7cT04NTt3PTUyMA--/

We heard about private prisons...but do you know of the private probation industry?
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10025380204

NYT: Probation Fees Rise, Firms Profit and the Poor Go to Jail
http://www.democraticunderground.com/1002893040

No Safe Place: How Cities Are Making It Illegal to be Homeless
http://www.democraticunderground.com/101699724

Thrown in jail for being poor: the booming for-profit probation industry
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10024603515

The exploitation of Ferguson I: In 2013 the town issued over 24,000 arrest warrants..
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10025404667

The exploitation of Ferguson II: The Seamy Underbelly Of Ferguson Starts To Appear
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10025416747

The exploitation of Ferguson III: Ferguson Feeds Off the Poor: Three Warrants a Year Per Household
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10025428157

Let alone all the other issues that Bernie nails so correctly.