[qeorge]

I'm assuming that the whole thing could be accomplished without occupying any more space than the existing prison system, and hopefully with fewer guards.

This would not be the case. Enforcing such a policy would be prohibitively expensive. Following the theme of the article, we can't even afford < 12 student classes, and schools are much cheaper than prisons.

In my opinion the solution is simple: put less people in prison. This chart says it all for me:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:US_incarceration_timeline-...

[hugh_]

Let's assume that the fraction of people in prison has grown over the last 70 years. This is either because sentencing has got harsher or because people are committing more crimes. Anecdotally, though, sentencing seems to have got less harsh -- for instance in the 1950s the Boggs act resulted in minimum mandatory sentences of 5-20 years for a first drug offense. Thus, we must conclude that people are committing more crimes than before.

Now, either they're committing more crimes because sentencing has got less harsh, or they're committing more crimes because of other social factors (eg the growth of gang culture, drug culture, et cetera). Either way it's not clear to me that making sentencing even less harsh than it already is will solve anything.

[foldr]

>This is either because sentencing has got harsher or because people are committing more crimes.

Or because more crimes are being prosecuted. It's completely false to say that it must be for one or other or those two reasons.