Is the Crackdown on Crime a Failing Investment?

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FBI statistics released this week show the first increase in violent crime in the past four years. Meantime, a bipartisan panel says Americans are getting a dismal return on the $60 billion they spend every year on prisons. Get-tough laws have led to massive over-crowding that allows gangs to take over; ex-convicts are returned to society without the resources to cope. What happens inside the prisons has a lot to do with what happens outside. Is it time for another look at rehabilitation? We hear from journalists, prison authorities, corrections authorities, social-justice advocates and a member of the prison commission, who says, "If these were public schools or publicly traded corporations, we'd shut them down."
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FBI's Preliminary Crime Statistics for 2005

Prison Commission's report, 'Confronting Confinement'

Rand on substance abuse

Northwestern Hawaiian Islands Coral Reef Ecosystem Reserve

James Campbell National Wildlife Refuge Expansion Act of 2005

1906 Antiquities Act

Jean-Michel Cousteau's Voyage to Kure

Credits

Host:

Warren Olney