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Today more Americans are imprisoned for drug offenses than for property crimes.

The federal prison population increased by almost 800 percent between 1980 and 2013, often at a far faster rate than the Bureau of Prisons could accommodate in their own facilities.

Studies have shown that inmate participation in education, vocational and job training, prison work skills development, drug abuse, mental health and other treatment programs, all reduce recidivism, significantly.

Most go to prison not on account of their irreducible uniqueness as people but because they are part of a marginalized sector of the population who never had a chance, who were slated for it early on.

But the single overwhelming reason why jails are bursting is longer sentences given for more crimes.

The United States has the highest incarceration rate in the world. Many of those people deserve to be in prison; however, some of them do not.

Prison is essentially a shortage of space made up for by a surplus of time; to an inmate, both are palpable.

We have 1.8 million Americans behind bars today at Local, State and Federal level. In the federal system, which has doubled in the last ten years, over 110,000 people behind bars in the Federal system, probably two-thirds are there for drug related reason.

Unfortunately, the elimination of incentives such as parole, good time credits and funding for college courses, means that fewer inmates participate in and excel in literacy, education, treatment and other development programs.