War on Drugs and Prison Thesis

.." (Painter, 2006) Painter states: "By more meaningful measures, however, the Drug War has been an extraordinary failure. Drugs are more available at higher purity and lower prices than they were at the start of the decade. By all accounts thus far we have been unable to spend and jail our way out of this problem." (2006) the result of the War on Drugs is that the government programs have in reality created "...a different set of principles for supply and demand." (Painter, 2006) Resulting from privatization of the prison system is that the 'supply' to fill the demand are human beings which answer the call for occupancy in prison cells and the demand can be seen as the powerful growling belly of the prison beast demanding to be filled so the coffers of those who run these prisons will be filled. Painter states: "Instead of the lower the price of a good, the greater the quantity of that good demanded by purchasers, that creates this force in the private sector, we see the "hog rough" effect. A pig will usually eat as long as there is food in the trough. This is the supply and demand that exists in public policy. This can only be controlled by leadership."

III. OPTIONS DO EXIST

There are other and more viable options to the insanity of the War on Drugs and these options would begin with options in leadership choices and in choosing leaders with a 'vision' for the United States of America instead of merely attending to feeding a raging and growing beast of a prison system.A second option is to decriminalize certain drugs such as marijuana, which are shown by scientific findings to be less harmful than the already legalized substance of alcohol. The third option is accountability for all individuals with the necessary supports of rehabilitation, treatment, life-skills training instead of the ongoing perpetuation of poverty and drug addiction. Indeed, it is likely that the components of the third option would be costly but instead of merely feeding the hungry prison beast causing it to grow larger and more demanding the monetary cost for these components would serve to restore individuals to their rightful place in life's community, their own family, and eventually would come with ROI or that is; return on investment.

Bibliography

Price, Byron Eugene (2006) Merchandizing Prisoners: Who Really Pays for Prison Privatization. Greenwood Publishing Group.

Benson, Bruce L. And Rasmussen, David W. (1996) Illicit Drugs and Crime. The Independent Institute. 1 Jan 1996. Online available at http://www.independent.org/publications/policy_reports/detail.asp?type=summary&id=2

Painter, Murphy J. (2003) the War on Drugs and the Economics of Incarceration 1970-2001 Online available at http://www.aspaonline.org/ethicscommunity/documents/War%20on%20Drugs%20and%20Economics.pdf

States in this conference include: Texas, Louisiana, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Missouri, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, Florida, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia, West….....