While the US incarcerates a significantly higher proportion of its population than any other country, our imprisonment system is utterly ineffective at actually rehabilitating offenders. Once released, three out of every four former state prisoners commit another crime within five years. In fact, more criminals are rearrested within 6 months of their release, 28.2%, than do not reoffend within five years, 23.4%. Each state prisoner costs taxpayers $31,286, on average, every year. Is the best we can expect from our prisons a delay in crime?

This raises a really great point about the effectiveness of prison sentences. It would be interesting to compare the recidivism rates in countries with better prison systems. For example, Norway has one of the lowest rates in the world: www.businessinsider.com/why-n…