The United States, including New Mexico, has had a growing problem in its criminal justice system. The United States is number one in the world when it comes to incarceration by a wide margin.
CNN reports in 1970, state prisons had a combined total of 174,000 inmates. By 2009, they had 1.4 million – an eight-fold increase. And these correctional systems cost a lot of money of course – nearly $80 billion a year.
Many of these people are in prison for drug offenses. Politically, in part because of the cost, there is finally some political pushback.
Trying to stop prison and sentencing reform is the prison lobby. Many of our prisons are run by private companies (that bring in billions in revue, paid by taxpayers), and these companies lobby state legislatures for bigger prisons and more prisoners.
Criminal defense attorneys, and criminal defense lawyer organizations, work to bring this problem to light and try to help their clients receive lighter sentences.
We need to change long prison sentences for non-violent offenders.
I you need a criminal defense lawyer, you can contact McGraw Law & Associates at (575) 323-1529
Las Cruces, NM