A decade or so ago there was a saying in my home state of Iowa. "Iowa: Home to more poker, pigs, and prisons". My state is rural. We are 30th in population ranking for the country, and even we have overcrowded prisons. We keep building them because the prison population is swelling here like the rest of the country. The alternative is to let people out early, which is wrong in my view. We need to take some money designed for prisoners and prisons and put it into preventative programs, so the people don't end up there in the first place!