With the popularization of tough on crime policies, the rate of incarceration in the United States continually rises. Currently, 1 in 35 adult men live inside a prison cell. Many of our popular notions of justice differ little from revenge. The state, in the name of the victim, seeks to impose as much or more pain on the guilty party as he or she is thought to have created. Often excessive sentencing and cruel prison conditions are justified as deserved. Yet, rather than making people safer by decreasing crime, this "eye for an eye" approach to justice actually increases crime and makes society more dangerous.

Placing people inside hostile environments for long periods of time where they experience deprivation emotionally, mentally and physically does not produce healthy, well-adjusted human beings. Rather, it creates deep dysfunction. Deprived of liberty, exposed to the daily violence of prison life, and with little or no access to counseling and other vital services, the prisoner becomes increasingly hopeless and alienated inside his/her cell. Released back into a highly competitive, unsympathetic society with $40.00, a bus pass, a criminal history, and few relevant labor skills, the despair and hopelessness of that person only increases. The prison system regularly releases thousands of previously incarcerated people in this state of dysfunction back into society. Like any person suffering from a deep psychosis, the previously incarcerated often find comfort in substance abuse and retreat back to what they knew before and in prison -- crime. This vicious cycle of crime created by approaching justice as revenge goes a long way to explain the current, staggering recidivism rate in this country of 80%. Our prison system does not turn criminals into productive members of society.

The increasing numbers of incarcerated and recently incarcerated citizens in our society place an enormous pressure on individuals, families, the penal system, social services and social structures. Each year Washington State alone incarcerates 9,000 people and releases over 8,000 previously incarcerated persons back into society. More than half of these incarcerations result from drug convictions. The dependency of the state on prison as a catch all response to crime negatively impacts both the individuals associated with the crime and the entire culture.

The larger culture not only bears the burden of paying to warehouse the millions of citizens placed in prisons each year, but it also suffers the emotional, financial and psychological costs associated with huge numbers of poor, despondent, and unskilled persons regularly reentering society. The problems created by the prison crisis affect all of us. Examining this crisis offers a window into our culture's relationship to prison as both a stark reality and potent metaphor.