The article makes the good point that reform won't happen with one piece of sweeping legislation, but rather with patchwork improvements to the system.
What would you do to reduce incarceration rates?
I would start with a reform of drug laws inspired by Portugal [1]. We're not sure if the same solution can scale to the size of the US, but we can introduce reform incrementally, starting with the decriminalization of Marijuana. (Which I think most would find agreeable.)
Education reform is important too. Obama is pushing reform to get states to increase the age of required education to 18 [2]. This sounds like a good idea on paper...we'll have to see how it pans out. His push for increase utilization of community colleges also makes sense, since they provide a decent education for the increasing number of Americans who can't afford college.
I think that removing the power of prison guard unions is something that will need to be addressed first.
Fore example:
Correction officers’ unions are powerful forces in states like California and New York; they push for the construction of more prisons and for longer sentences for criminals (so that there are more people for correction officers to guard). Their activities in California are a case in point. In the last eight years they have spent $10 million on state politics — either in direct contributions to politicians or in spending on ballot initiatives relating to crime and punishment. They have mounted full-scale political campaigns. For instance, the California corrections union has attacked public officials, such as the Los Angeles district attorney, who supported an alternative to the union-favored “three-strikes law.” Indeed, Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy in February of this year noted that “the three-strikes law sponsor is the correctional officers’ union and that is sick!” In 1999 the union even successfully opposed a proposal to permit the California attorney general to prosecute brutality in prisons.
Increasing the age required for education doesn't really accomplish anything except put more hopeless souls behind bars. People either drop out of school because they must to survive or because they have lost all faith in the system. Forcing them to stay until they are 18 does nothing to further their ambitions and only tries to solve a broken system built on abuse with more abuse.
> increase the age of required education to 18 [2]. This sounds like a good idea on paper
I would recommend reading Cevin Soling's "Why Public Schools Must be Abolished" for the opposite viewpoint:
While it is possible for a North Korean POW to learn calculus under duress from their prison guard, it is reasonable to assume they will: A) associate math with incarceration; B) despise the inmates who learn for appearing readily complicit with their captors; and C. try to forget the information the moment they are free.
IANAL, but I think marijuana is specifically mentioned in the U.S. Code and it would take more than an executive order to change the law. While it might be removed from "Schedule I", that would just make Schedule I incomplete.
The Controlled Substances Act would still punish marijuana possession since it is specifically named there, not just in reference to schedule I.
Opium poppies are also listed by name, but while you can grow them in your flower garden (but putting one in a vase on your dining table is a crime!), you can't even grow cannabis.
Education reform is important too. Obama is pushing reform to get states to increase the age of required education to 18 [2].
Imagine if you had spent 6 hours a day 5 days a week for 12 years being forced to play sports. If the idea provokes violent horror in you you now have some idea how the people you would be forcing to stay in school would feel about it. And make no mistake; compulsory attendance at allegedly educational institutions is forced. Whether the superior outcomes for those thus compelled outweighs the poorer outcomes and massively less pleasant experience of those forced to share classrooms and teacher attention with sullen youth there under pain of imprisonment is aquestion to be dealt with in ones own head.
Actually, I think that's a great example--on the one hand, I would probably find that annoying and unpleasant. On the other hand, had I done more sports earlier in my life, I would be better off now. (I am currently not nearly as fit as I should be.)
That said, I don't think raising the required education age is the right move either. In a perfect world, we would concentrate on improving the quality of education instead, both imparting more knowledge in the time people are at school and getting them to like school more. However, I do not have the slightest clue of how to accomplish this.
Given that law enforcement officers are permitted to initiate physical force in mandating attendance, perhaps they could also involuntarily medicate students with mood altering stimulants to accomplish this? It might make them better off later. However since we have extinguished all opportunities available to the individual unseen from our limited perspective, by forcing choice of the benefit that was seen, it is not epistemologically possible for us to know. We must instead confine ourselves to a discussion of the means and processes by which these ends are realized. This includes discussion of whether individuals have the right to initiate force against others to achieve ends, and whether they are able to delegate rights they do not have to agencies of enforcement via nonmagical means.
Increasing the age of required education to 18 doesn't sound like a good idea to me at all. I knew several people who left school early (aged 16 or so) who wouldn't have gotten anywhere staying at school longer - they were much happier getting started on "real" work. All it will achieve is massaging some unemployment statistics to make it look like some problems aren't so bad.
What would you do to reduce incarceration rates?
I would start with a reform of drug laws inspired by Portugal [1]. We're not sure if the same solution can scale to the size of the US, but we can introduce reform incrementally, starting with the decriminalization of Marijuana. (Which I think most would find agreeable.)
Education reform is important too. Obama is pushing reform to get states to increase the age of required education to 18 [2]. This sounds like a good idea on paper...we'll have to see how it pans out. His push for increase utilization of community colleges also makes sense, since they provide a decent education for the increasing number of Americans who can't afford college.
1: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drug_policy_of_Portugal 2: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/post/obama-...