It was reported this week that 1 in every 100 Americans is in jail or prison. 2,319,258 to be exact. The above map shows where they are located. It’s scary. Texas, California, and Florida lead the pack. I wonder why that might be? It must be because they have the largest population. Surely, there are no other factors. Of course most of the illegal immigrants spend the night in jail rather than hotels, but that probably doesn’t count in the statistics.

The 50 states spent 49 billion dollars for corrections last year. The rate of increase for the prison cost was six times greater than for higher education. Texas spent 3.3 billion for prison cost last year. The average cost per prisoner is $23,876.

The U.S. incarcerates more people than any other country and we are even ahead of China. China, of course executes their prisoners but they don’t keep score and report things like we do. We do rank as one of the top countries for executions and are only exceeded by China, Iran, Pakistan and Sudan. But, like I said those folks don’t keep accurate score.

Things are costing so much the states are being encouraged to be creative with cost cutting measures. It has been suggested that only the real bad guys go behind bars and those who commit lesser crimes could have better community supervision.

There is no real need for child molesters and rapist to be in prison. They could be assigned to the church for monitoring since the ministry now has a lot of experience in dealing with these types. These potential prisoners could go into some of the church rehab programs that have been so effective.

Drug addicts and pushers could be assigned to the US Border Patrol. They could be stationed along our borders and just use up the stuff on the spot rather than having in smuggled into the country. These folks really wouldn’t care about escaping since they would be where the action is.

Another positive action would be to force all convenience and liquor stores to close at sunset. This would eliminate well over half the robberies in the country. Robberies will also markedly decrease when Obama is President because most of these potential felons will be getting a sizable handout so they will be content to stay at home and reproduce. Another positive action would be to let all the black men go free, because according to Jesse Jackson they are being incarcerated because of their race. The final thing I would suggest is to ban all marriages because a large percentage of murders are related to domestic disputes. This would greatly reduce the murder rate.

I think my plan would work nicely. The prisons would be virtually empty. I would also plan to put bars on the porch, just in case. These bars, of course, are to protect me.