Our Prison System

In today's news there's a report about the two U.S. female journalists who are facing trail in N. Korea. If convicted of their crimes they face 10 years in a prison camp. My question is this: Why can't our prisons be this ominous? We do live in the greatest country in the world. But I have to hand it to many of the foreign countries we chastise for their view on prisons. People do not want to go to prison in N. Korea, or Iran, or face justice in Singapore (remember the guy who got caned.)

As a result, people just don't break the law in some of these countries the way they do here. In this country, you hear rappers routinely profess that they don't care about going back to prison. You can watch the news all day for video footage of armed robberies and assaults and high speed chases. Each time, as these folks get caught and properly sentenced to 3 hots and a cot and often for the 2nd, 3rd, 4th visit they don't seem too upset about their fortunes.

It seems to me that prison in this country is not serving as enough of a deterrent to crime. Why can't prison be a place to loathe. Why can't our prison take years off a life. Why can't it be an extremely difficult place to visit so that people are more fearful of doing anything that might land them in prison. This country does itself a disservice by not making our prisons an unwelcoming place. This country does it's law abiding citizens a disservice by not making our prisons an unwanted consequence of illegal activity.

Certainly, there must be something we can do to make a change in these policies. Our prison system is overcrowded, under funded, and outdated. There has to be a way that we can make our prisons a place that can help curb incidents of crime in our country. That would be a public service on which one cannot put a price.