So what? Only people who are found guilty of crimes get locked up. If we cut down on our prison population, then your article would be about crime in the streets from repeat offenders who never served jail time. I’ll take the former over the latter.

Part of the problem of increasing prison rates is that for decades, one could figuratively get away with murder with out paying a price. For many of the so called “rich” that is still true. However it set up a nationwide expectation that one could commit almost any crime and get away with a slap on the wrist. Now, the “public” has revolted and demanded increased rates of incarceration, with all the “bad things” that come with it. There are two morals here, the first is we have to do something different, the current status quo is not working the way people thought it would. The second moral is don’t do the crime if you can’t do the time. Individual responsibility has to be taught from todlerhood (is that a word?) on up. Without taking responsibility for one’s actions, one cannot gripe too much. Thus speaketh the rightwing knuckledragging neandertholic commenter.