USA— Let me begin this story by telling you that our criminal justice system, and our correctional system is a total, dysfunctional disgrace.   We put people away based on the nebulous term, reasonable doubt. I don’t care who tries to define the term it comes out differently for everybody.   We have to face it that innocent people are convicted every day for a multitude of reasons, including corrupt police investigations. Most people put in prison are there based on their own words.  These for the most part are dangerous and psychotic people that must stay in cages.  Our prisons are cruel places, particularly for the innocent. The clash of race and cultural diversity very often ends in extortion, robbery, rape and of course murder.  Prison guards cannot simply police incorrigible inmates. Many prisons let the inmates run the asylum and I say that seriously.  It’s much easier for the politicly appointed prison staffers to leave their work to the inm...

Corcoran State Prison, CA —In this tough prison there are few bright spots.  Charles Manson, Sirhan Sirhan and many other convicted criminals who have committed despicable crimes wait here to simply die.    Most other inmates will quickly get out and the rate of return is astronomical. Of course they destroy lives along the way.  Our correctional institutions do anything but correct.  They are almost all, in reality advanced schools of crime and violence. We have locked up millions of young people in what we call correctional institutions.  We demand they turn their lives around but have made that daunting task impossible.  Perhaps it’s because we place them with one another where they can form peer groups of despair, destruction and depravity.  This concept can only fail. Most of these convicted losers come from ignorance, poverty and are raised by the worst mentors society has to offer.  We only make things worse for them. ...