Overcrowding isn’t judges’ fault

Don’t be misled about the Statehouse proposal of relieving the overcrowded prisons by releasing early a significant number of “nonviolent” offenders.

Judges do not put first-time nonviolent offenders in prison. In fact, state law generally prohibits that. The prisons are not overcrowded because they are populated with undeserving nonviolent offenders. Drug dealers, the ones selling the opiates to our kids and susceptible adults that cause their deaths, are in prison. People who enter your house while you are asleep are in prison.

People who commit nonviolent crimes, such as stealing from their business, the elderly, or their church, are in prison only if they have stolen before or if they have committed violent crimes prior to their present nonviolent offense. All of these presumed nonviolent offenders are in our prisons along with the murders, rapists, and robbers.

In more than 90 percent of the cases, the public would agree that the people in prison belong there.

Our prisons are not crowded because judges are putting the wrong people in prison. They are crowded because we don’t have enough prisons. We have 28 prisons in Ohio and the last one built was in Youngstown in 1998. Crime has increased in the past 20 years along with the state’s population.

It is understandable that our legislators do not want to spend a lot of money on prisons when our schools, highways, elderly, veterans and disabled are greatly in need of our valuable resources.

Do we need more prison space? Yes. Do we need to build more prisons rather than release these “nonviolent” offenders? This is a question readers and their legislators must answer.

However, do not blame or accuse our judges of putting the wrong people in prison.