Locked Up
Prison Population Keeps Rising
By Daniel Muniz

According to the annual report from the Justice Department's Bureau of Justice Statistics, a whopping 7 million people are incarcerated, on probation, or on parole. Those numbers translates into a staggering ratio of 1 in every 32 adults who have serious problems with the law. As for the number of people locked up behind bars, that number is 2.2 million and it is still rising. And those numbers also reflect a trend of an increasing number of female inmates.

Needless to say, that is a lot of people.

And according to new projections for the future, that statistic is expected to continue rising especially since states like Texas are already experiencing problems with overcrowded prisons even after a massive boom of constructing new correctional facilities.

Yes, it is a shame that this nation has a lot of people who are incarcerated, on parole, or on probation. It is tragic because the lives of millions of people are affected as well as the lives of the victims. However, this is still an issue of personal responsibility. People are in jail for a reason yet society still refuses to come to grips with that reality. But the solution is really kind of easy if more people bothered to examine the problem.

That is, if you don’t break the law, then you won’t go to jail.

That’s pretty easy; and there is nothing earth-shattering in that solution.

In fact, to demonstrate how easy the answer already is, just take a look at the hundreds of millions of people in this country who never go to jail. And yet, they are still quite capable, through their own behavior, to keep themselves out of prison for their entire lifetime while still enjoying a very normal life.

Upon the release of the Justice Department’s annual report, Marc Mauer, who is the executive director of the Sentencing Project which supports reforming our legal system expresses his disbelief by stating:

"Today's figures fail to capture incarceration's impact on the thousands of children left behind by mothers in prison"

Source: The Associated Press

Perhaps there is nothing more tragic than children being torn apart from their mothers but the reality is still rather grim in that if these people didn’t break the law in the first place, then they wouldn’t be in prison. No one actually forced these women to go jail and especially as a mother, there is now so much more to lose.

But more to the point, becoming a parent is a very serious life-changing event. It means that your entire lifestyle and behavior has to abruptly and radically change because there is another human being that you are completely responsible for. And most importantly, that means that a parent has to stop engaging in criminal activity if they are going to actually be available to care for their offspring.

Does it sound cruel and heartless to admonish a mother who sits in a cell of a correctional institution that she should have been a better person so that she could be a parent to her child instead of wasting time in jail?

Well, there are already generations of millions of mothers who have avoided prison by not engaging in criminal activity. It’s happening all the time in which responsible people make lifestyle decisions that determine how they will fare for their future. Unfortunately, the people in jail made the wrong choices in life and they have to pay the price for it.

Overall, I am not going to lose any sleep because so many people are locked up.

In fact, I sleep at night better knowing that these violent thugs and hoodlums are behind bars (instead of breaking into my house) or are being closely monitored by probation and parole officers.

In all truthfulness, I am really glad that these hoods are in jail instead of roaming the streets, which happens to be aspiration of a lot of well-intentioned people. I am not exactly crazy about thugs and hoodlums walking free and committing more violent crimes.

Furthermore, I wouldn’t mind if these hoods spent more time in prison especially if they are violent and have a history of being repeat offenders.

Unfortunately, the media is already hyping up this situation as a failure. The press seems to lament over the high number of people who have trouble with the law.

However, I personally see this as an accomplishment.

I want safe streets and law and order so that my children can grow up in a better place. And if there are people who choose not to belong in this better place, then perhaps the only other place for them is jail especially if they do not want to adhere to the laws of our society. If that is the case, so be it.

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