here's my two cents, for what it's worth.
1. for the love of god or whatever holiness you feel, STOP BUILDING PRISONS.
2. fix controlled substance laws, classifications, and punishment (screw mandatory minimum anything)
3. end the corporatized penal system once and for all.
okay, now for the backing.....
1. more prisons does not equal less crime. the fact that there has been NO CHANGE in rates of crimes (violent/nonviolent street, or corporate) despite an ever increasing prison population should be a pretty damned good indication that prison is not a successful deterrent.
3. so long as prisons are run by corporations and not the government, there will be more and more prisons built. when a gov't-paid corp. builds a prison on contract, you better believe that the gov't will find people to fill them.
2. lets see if we can find the logic in this...... the penalty for posession of crack cocaine is FIVE TIMES higher than that of posession of powdered cocaine (i can find u a more reputable source than my word of mouth, but im at work right now, so it'll have to be a bit later). now, lets work this through. powdered cocaine is higher purity and higher cost, lending itself well to higher socioeconomic users. crack is less pure, less expensive, and found in lower SES neighborhoods. doesnt make sense to me.
now, the next part will draw fire, im sure, but such is life. i dont want to sound like an aging hippie liberal deushbag, but lets reclassify the controlled substances. if our government legalized marijuana, grew its own, and taxed the sale of it in stores, how many billions of dollars annually do u think we could make? and, none of that "weed is more dangerous than cigarettes" crap. they are all bad for you; it is just our societally defined morality that keeps us believing that cigarettes and alcohol are better than controlled substances.
EDIT: lol, i was beaten to the punch, but there is some proof to what im saying
