Who’s living in a police state?

We are.
Actually, we aren’t, it is much closer to us living in a “prison state.”
I just ran across a fascinating story, which states quite clearly that the U.S. has the world’s largest population of people behind bars, on parole or on probation.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20061209/ts_nm/usa_prisoners_dc
We are also the leader in terms of per-capita prisoner population, so there is no wriggling out of it. We are ahead of nations like China and Russia, despite being smaller than them. In fact, we are almost ahead of them combined, according to the study. We are also ahead of nations like Syria and Iran as a proportion of our population. We incarcerate more drug offenders than Western Europe incarcerates for everything… combined.
This should be a major wake-up call.
We need to figure out why we have so many criminals, and we need to figure out why “being tough on crime” is not actually making us safer.
In my opinion part of the answer is clear. We have to do a better job of providing opportunity and social services to those at the lowest socio-economic level so that there are better choices than crime to make a living. Furthermore, the children of these lower class households need to be cared for in quality schools and daycares so that their parents can work, and so that they grow up feeling like they are part of the greater community of productive citizens.
Perhaps even more importantly, we need to look at our “War on Drugs” and ask the same questions the Iraq study group asked.
Are we winning? If not, how do we win? Finally, if we can’t “win”, how can we improve the situation
The answer I come up with is that we are not winning the war on drugs. Furthermore, just like the war in Iraq, civilian populations are being destroyed in our attempt.
It would be disastrous to simply legalize everything tomorrow, and open the prison doors. However, limited legalization and amnesty needs to be looked at honestly.
I don’t feel we can sustain a free society if we continue to lead the world in people who are not free. The first step is taking our heads out of the sand.