As ever when I look for an country that I think will be an example of doing something well, I start with the nordics. And I see that Sweden has recently closed 4 prisons because they don't have enough prisoners to fill them any more. [2]

I would love to hear counter points if my cursory reading has missed something - but in general I was once again impressed by the attitudes I see there.

[1] http://www.internationalpenalandpenitentiaryfoundation.org/S... [2]http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/nov/11/sweden-closes-p...

(Edit: Since this is possibly controversial, here are a few Norwegian sources: https://www.google.com/search?q=soning+i+Nederland )

You can bet your ass that the number of dollars able to be rallied for this purpose is dwarfed by the incumbent interests. Further, it's trivial to say "Do you want to have your kid growing up next to an evil ~=felon=~?" and sway votes, because people are not rational above family-unit decisions.

So, understanding that it's probably a hopeless cause, the best thing you can do is support ex-felons, help them find work and learn useful skills, and vote whenever possible for anything that helps curtail or curb the police state.

That means voting for legalization of everything, full stop. That means voting for reduced surveillance powers, full stop. That means voting for less defense spending, full stop. That means voting for fewer crimes and smaller police forces, full stop. Anything else is playing into the hands of the oppressors.

We closed the mental institutions and released folks into the general population, and that didn't work very well. Closing the prisons would be worse, because some of the people in there actually mean to do us harm.

This doesn't follow. Prisons are not equivalent to mental health institutions; there's a lot more at play there.

I'd say that's a difficult assertion to prove in a system that provides every incentive for recidivism. In addition, how would you (or anyone else) fairly evaluate who falls into this category?

Or anyone else, for that matter. Tom Widiger, who served as head of research for DSM-IV, says "There are lots of studies which show that clinicians diagnose most of their patients with one particular disorder and really don't systematically assess for other disorders. They have a bias in reference to the disorder that they are especially interested in treating and believe that most of their patients have."

The reason should be obvious -- unlike medicine, psychological diagnoses rely on assessing symptoms, not the detection and treatment of causes.

Psychiatrists and psychologists who serve on parole boards have a record no better than chance. When they say that a person is no longer a threat and merits release, based on their accuracy and predictive track record, they might as well flip a coin.