The prison system is overcrowded. A lot of inmates are non-violent offenders like those in the following list:

Drug offenses: 88,960 (53.8%)

Burglary, larceny, property offenses: 6,784 (4.1%)

Immigration: 18,325 (11.1%)

Robbery: 10,078 (6.1%)

Extortion, fraud, bribery: 6,856 (4.1%)

Miscellaneous: 3,478 (2.1%)

Banking and insurance, counterfeit, embezzlement: 1,013 (0.6%)

Courts or corrections: 709 (0.4%)

Continuing criminal enterprise: 603 (0.4%)

<a href="http://www.libraryindex.com/pages/2527/Characteristics-Inmates-TYPES-CRIMES.html">Characteristics of Inmates - Types Of Crimes</a>

The following are excerpts from Sara Lugo,

More than one-in-100 adult Americans are in jail or prison, an all-time high that is costing state governments nearly $50 billion a year according to a report released on February 2009 by the nonpartisan Pew Center on the States. With more than 2.3 million people behind bars at the start of 2008, the United States leads the world in both the number and the percentage of residents it incarcerates.The cost to house each inmate for 12 months is conservatively $40,000 a year, costs nearly double for inmates with medical issues, and costs rise significantly for all inmates over age 60. We, in U.S., are paying more than 5 billion dollars each year to warehouse a population 134,000 non-violent offenders; convicted on crimes such as, drug offenses, immigrations, fraud and embezzlement. That is 55% of the inmates housed in low and minimum security prisons.

The H.R. 1475,  Federal Prison Work Incentive Act of 2009 was introduced on March 12, 2009 by Rep. Danny Davis (D-Ill.). This bill would substantially revive the good time system that existed before November 1, 1987. Good time is the amount of time a prisoner, whose record of conduct shows substantial observance of Bureau of Prisons (BOP) regulations is eligible to have deducted from the term of his sentence. The amount varies depending on, among other things, the length of the prisoner’s sentence.

Congressman Davis’s proposal would increase earned good time, restore industrial good time (providing for additional opportunities to reduce one’s sentence by engaging in work opportunities) , allow forfeiture of all good time credit in the event of infractions in prison, and provide for potential restoration of forfeited good time credit.

Increased Good Time will save the US taxpayers a minimum of $2 billion per year by taking offenders out of the prison system earlier. Good Time will reduce inmate populations considerably. In these economic times, spending tax money to incarcerate the non-violent, non-dangerous offenders means less money to spend on other priorities. What other priorities should loose funding, children services, schools, efforts to place more police on the streets? Bigger cuts in these areas will increase violent crimes. The beds in the Bureau of Prisons are occupied by people who don’t need to be there. This cycle will perpetuate, still, more money will be needed to be spent to build more prisons and staff; then, less money will be available for education and police meanwhile crime rates will increase again.

Let’s have the non-violent offenders serve the remainder of their sentences outside working real jobs and paying taxes just like the rest of us! Sara Lugo, Facebook www.facebook.com/topic.php?uid=50158865417&topic=8805

I whole heartedly agree with Sara, we need to help push through The Federal Prison Work Incentive Act of 2009. When I saw her article I had to add it to my Hub as it seems to be a wonderful companion to it.

As I said, I agree with Sara. I will even go further. I believe that once these inmates are paroled we need to see that they are educated in a trade school. I believe that if they are educated and given a trade they are much less likely to return to the penile system. If the government pays for their tuition through a loan program they can be required to pay back their tuition while they work. There is no reason that they can not be expected to pay back a percentage out of each of their paychecks. This way they have enough to live on and are lowering their debt steadily.

If a person becomes educated and has a trade I believe they are less likely to commit a crime. They have financial stability, pride in their achievement and have learned a whole new way of life.This new way of life can now be passed down generation to generation and just maybe, our prisons will someday hold only memories of an era once saturated with crime.

As, Sarah said, once these parolees have jobs they become a working part of society and their tax dollars are being added to the pot! As I see it, it becomes a win, win situation. It lessons the overcrowding situation in prisons, lowers the financial burden of keeping an inmate imprisoned, increases the chances of a parolee not returning to prison, increases tax dollars into the governments pocket, allows a parolee to learn a trade so they can support themselves and their family, which lowers the need for state aid, and helps the inmate to become a well adjusted part of society who can teach the next generation to stay on the right path. I don't see a real down side!