"Violent crime is down in New York and many other cities, but there are two big reasons to keep the champagne corked. One is that murder, rape, robbery, and assault remain at historic highs: the streets of Manhattan, like those of Houston, Philadelphia, Detroit, Chicago, and Los Angeles, remain much less safe today than in the 1950s and 1960s. Worse, though policing and prison policies matter, nothing affects crime rates more than the number of young males in the population—and by the year 2010, there will be about 4.5 million more males age 17 or under than there were in 1990: 8 percent more whites and 26 percent more blacks. Since around 6 percent of young males turn out to be career criminals, according to the historical data, this increase will put an estimated 270,000 more young predators on the streets than in 1990, coming at us in waves over the next two decades. Numerous studies show that each succeeding generation of young male criminals commits about three times as much serious crime as the one before it: the occasional fatal knife fight of 1950s street gangs has given way to the frequent drive-by shootings of 1990s gangs."


This little snippet caught my eye; it is a serious problem that is going to plague our society. Building prisons and housing inmates costs a great deal of money. As it is, California prison's are overcrowded, and the statistics point to an increase of prisoners within the next five to ten years. How are we going to afford such a burden? When faced with such a puzzling question I look to the Greeks for answers. I’d have to say that we need to ‘expose’ some of the prisoners. Although, I think the Greeks did that with babies, so maybe it is too late to do that. I think the answer would be in finding a way for them to help pay their debt to society. As a tax payer I want to get some return from the money that is taken from me. Sure I’m benefiting from criminals being off the streets and in prison, but I should at least be entertained. I think a prison reality show would be a great way of making money. 'Jeopardy Prison Edition’ would be amusing, or 'Making The Band San Quintan'.
In California, some people argue that our 'three strikes law' needs to be revised, and the parole system needs to be altered. Educational opportunities and drug treatment programs need to be well funded inorder to reduce the amount of repeat criminals. I think we need to build more prisons. We should focus our attention toward our children and do everything possible to educate them. Instead of spending money on rehabilitating criminals we should spend that money on creating programs for impoverished children.