The U.S. Could Be Smart (Rather than Tough) on Crime, But We Don’t Want To Be

Long-term 2GreenEnergy supporter Garry Tulie writes:

If tough on crime works, how come the US has a massively higher prison population than the EU, and still has way higher levels of violent crime!

Take a look at countries like The Netherlands 63 prisoners per 100,000 and Norway 60 per 100,000! That compares to USA 655 per 100,000.

Both have substantially lower violent crime rates than the USA with 10% the rate on incarceration!

Isn’t it time to be smart on crime rather than tough on crime? Learn what works, and apply best practice?

The answer is this: The U.S. is a brutish nation.  We’ll choose force over reason every day of the week.

It’s obvious to anyone that any program that keeps kids in school and encourages them to go to college has a fantastic effect on reducing poverty, crime and incarceration, but we simply don’t care. We equate social programs with communism, and that’s about as far as our thinking takes us.

In  the EU, prison is a necessary evil; here’s it’s an industry.  In the U.S., building and operating prisons is really no different that manufacturing auto parts or footwear.