More than 650,000 people, equivalent to the population of Memphis, Tennessee, are released from federal and state prisons every year. More than 75 percent of them will be behind bars again within five years, according to the U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics.
In recent years, consensus has been growing among policymakers in both parties that our practice of “warehousing” prisoners is contributing to the perpetuation of criminal behavior in the United States, which in turn devastates families and imposes significant costs on all Americans. So, in a rare act of bipartisanship, Congress has begun to take steps to address America's prison problem. Unfortunately, however, politics in Washington threatens to halt the progress.
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