The U.S. makes up 5% of the world's population but locks up 25% of the world's prisoners, more per capita than China and Iran.

Today's prisons hold men whose only "crime" was to buy a large quantity of legal cold medicine that "can be" used in meth manufacturing. Do we want the government to have that kind of power? There are people in prison for drawing out "too much" money from their own accounts. They call that structuring. Why is that a crime in the land of the free? There are people locked up who told a lie, or deemed so by a federal agent, when questioned by an agent, not in Court, nor under oath. Do we want a single agent to be able to lock us up for what he deems a lie? What happened to due process and to the Bill of Rights?

Government agents and prosecutors are not perfect, and we need the shield of the Constitution to protect us from them. Some in the Justice Department have told Congress that they don't believe in Habeas Corpus. Either you believe in the Constitution, or you don't. Someone said, "The Greatest Homeland Security is Liberty."

When I see young men growing up in prison for 20 years, I ask what chance do they have? When I see elderly men in wheel chairs, I ask who are they a threat to? When I see first time offenders for non-violent crimes locked away and their children placed in foster homes, I ask isn't there a better way to hold people accountable without destroying them and their families? 72% of federal inmates are in for non-violent crimes. 34.4% are first time non-violent offenders. Why not divert them into alternative sentencing? The prison population is busting the budget and overwhelming the capacity of the government. We can't sustain this financially or morally.

Inmates need a chance at parole to have hope and to be rewarded for good behavior. It would also help hold down violence in prison. A Christian I know was assaulted inside, his jaw shattered. He was nearly killed. Bringing back parole would save billions a year at the Federal level. That doesn't include the savings on food stamps, social services that families now need or lost tax revenue. Throwing out sentencing guidelines would reduce some of these very long, punitive sentences. Let the Judges set sentences again. Under the present system, prosecutors, not Judges, have determined what a person will get under the sentencing guidelines by the varied charges they bring against a citizen. They have been accountable to no one, and have unbridled power that no one person should have in a "free" country.

Now prosecutors level a shotgun spread of charges at a person. The giant sentencing guidelines book shows the points, months, years to add on each count. If you violate this, it says you are subject to this range of sentencing, and see section so and so to add more time for some related section. This goes on and on, and you wind up with a very long sentence determined by a book of guidelines made over 20 years ago by ideological bureaucrats, with no leeway for first-time non-violent offenders, no discretion by judges. This is 'Big Brother" at it's worst.