Sometimes you have to look from the outside to see the truth. Thank you, Stephen Fry, for pointing out the obvious (except to us in the USA, that is).

If you’re going to imprison 1% of your population, wouldn’t it be easier and cheaper to offer real help to those who are imprisoned, rather than letting them languish or using them as slave labor? It seems to me that most prisoners are there because of drug usage. Drug dealers are in there, too, but I wonder if most of those are busy running their criminal enterprises from the relative safety of prison.

It seems to me that prison might be a great place to offer inmates, particularly those who are suffering from mental illnesses, opportunities to utilize the latest alternative and mainstream mental health resources. I wonder what might happen if inmates were offered such “radical” treatments and change processes as hypnotherapy and Rapid Eye Technology along with classes on managing stress.

It seems to me better that we just don’t fill our prisons with poor or mentally ill people. We seriously need reforms in our laws that unnecessarily imprison so many of our citizens. That’s a political discussion I’ll leave for another forum.

We in the US really do need to do something about this issue. Letting go of our irrational fears based on violent TV series (ala Dexter and CSI Miami) and movies might be a first step.