Breaking the Cycle

The prison system in the US is obviously flawed. As a nation having more than 2 million people incarcerated, we are far from seeing the lowest crime rates as a result. In fact, all we do is release prisoners after a certain number of years and thrust them out with no skills or help. Inevitably, they end up behind bars once again. The NY Times has a refreshing article detailing how one ex-inmate established a place for others to prepare for life in the outside world. No doubt there are other programs out there that endeavor to help former inmates in the same way. But it strikes me as odd that these programs are struggling to scrape together enough funding to keep their operations afloat, while we pour taxpayer money into building and maintaining prisons that perpetuate the cycle of imprisonment. If we diverted more of these funds into programs like Mr. Graham's, in the end we'd save lives and money.