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Prison Reform
Prison overcrowding is one of the most serious problems we face here in Texas. It is a drain on our resources and a threat
to our safety. Overcrowding leads to greater violence, more escapes, more drug use, more disease and more expense. Practical solutions to the problem are right in front of us, but our legislators are too cowardly or
too corrupt to take action. One of the worst among them is Dawnna Dukes. She is a champion of the current failed system
and more, bigger and more crowded prisons.
My objectives for Texas prisons are to make sure that violent criminals stay behind bars, to reduce costs
to the public for keeping them there, and to lower the overall prison population and eliminate overcrowding and the need to build
more prisons.
The first step to cleaning up the prison problem is to stop imprisoning non-violent offenders. Even if we
don't manage to legalize relatively harmless drugs like Marijuana, there is no justification for jailing drug users or other non-violent lawbreakers. Rehabilitation, community service or simple fines for drug related crimes are a much simpler and less expensive
solutions. The same applies to other non-violent crimes which can be dealt with through alternative sentencing without sending anyone to jail.
Releasing rapists and armed robbers early to reduce overcrowding while people whose only crime is recreational drug use are being taken away from their jobs and
families and thrown in prison is an outrage against logic and decency.
The next step is to make prisons pay for themselves. Inmates should be put to work, either in the prison, or under
the right conditions, hired out to businesses which need manual labor. Yes, it's the old idea of the chain-gang, but it was an idea
which worked and should never have been abandoned. The money paid for prison labor should go to cover the cost of housing and feeding
the prisoner and to victim compensation, either directly to the victims of that inmate, or to a general victims compensation fund.
These two changes would reduce overcrowding while keeping violent criminals behind bars. They would
make new prisons unnecessary, massively reduce the cost of the prison system, keep families together and workers in their
jobs, and make Texas a better, safer place to live.
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