Why America locks up too many people, reads the headline of an editorial in "The Economist" of July, 24 2010. It's a question that every tax-paying American needs to answer, for the following reasons:

1. Justice is harsher in America than in any other rich country. Between 2.3 million and 2.4 million Americans are behind bars, roughly one in every 100 adults. Include those on parole or probation, and the ration jumps to one adult in 31 under "correctional" supervision. Proportionately, The USA incarcerates five times more people than Britain, nine times more than Germany and 12 times more than Japan.

Overcrowding is the norm. Federal prisons house 60% more inmates than they were designed for. State lock-ups are only slightly less stuffed.

2. Simple economics; the cost of our long love affair with lock and key. How much does it cost American tax-payers to keep nearly 2.5 million people in prison every year? According to a report released in 2008 by the nonpartisan Pew Center on the States it costs state governments nearly $51.7 billion a year, in addition to more than $5 billion spent by the federal government. This averages out to about $30,000 per prisoner.

The dollar amounts quoted above do not include the cost of child welfare payments and medicaid costs for the dependents of those in prison. Clearly our long love affair with lock and key costs tax-payers more than we realize.

Some will argue that this is a price worth paying to keep our citizens safe. But this begs the question; "do harsher penalties reduce crime?" As yet no convincing evidence has been produced to show that locking up more people actually makes our communities any safer.

Are there alternatives? We will explore possible alternatives in an up coming article.

Sources: The Economist, Pew Center on the States, The Denver Post.

America's Love Affair With The Lock and Key