The ACLU has received a $50 million dollar grant to reduce the jail and prison population in the United States by 50% within 8 years. It's a huge goal, but many states are already headed in the right direction.

A new Pew study shows that those reductions in incarceration rates don't translate into higher crime in communities. In Massachusetts, the incarceration rate dropped 12% over the past five years. During the same time period, the crime rate fell 14%. In California the numbers are even better. That state reduced its prison and jail population by 25% and crime dropped 11%.

Money for education and clean energy, not for prisons and jails. Just imagine what we could do as a society if we didn't ruin so many lives, and waste so much money, putting people into cages.