An Alternative for Prison

America's prisons have been called "graduate schools for crime." It stands to reason: Take a group of people, strip them of possessions and privacy, expose them to constant threats of violence, overcrowd their cell-block, deprive them of meaningful work, and the result is an embittered underclass more intent on getting even with society than contributing to it. Prisons take the nonviolent offender and make him live by violence. They take the nonviolent offender and make …

…to twenty, out in five". Crime is the result of morally responsible people making wrong moral decisions, for which they must be held accountable. The just and necessary response to such behavior is punishment, which may include restitution for community service, stiff fines, or , in cases where the offender is dangerous, prison. But let's not kid ourselves any longer. The prison was not designed to cure the individual; it was made to lock him up.