To: President Donald Trump, The California State House, The California State Senate, Governor Gavin Newsom, The United States House of Representatives, and The United States Senate
Purge the Prisons of Harmless Inmates
We, the taxpayers of the United States of America, call on all federal, state and local legislators as well as the President of the United States, the U.S. Attorney General, governors of every state and the attorneys general of each state to immediately begin the process of purging all non-violent offenders or suspects awaiting trial from all prisons and jails in the United States. We call on all of these representatives and officials to institute alternative programs to deal with non-offenders so that we can drastically reduce the cost of unnecessary incarcerations and implement more effective and more cost-effective ways of dealing with violators of non-violent crimes and suspects.
Why is this important?
U.S. citizens are paying a large part of their taxes on keeping people in prison. United States leads the world in sheer numbers of prisoners and in prisoners per capita. It's especially sad that more than 70 percent of the prisoners in the U.S. are non-whites. What's worse is that a very large number of those we incarcerate are not a physical threat to people. There are better ways of discouraging most of the prisoners from being repeat offenders. Why should hard-working taxpayers be picking up the tab for housing, feeding, dressing and giving medical care to white collar criminals, tax evaders, recreational drug users and to hundreds of thousands of "lifers" who have long since learned their lessons? Everyone should want to sign this petition to demand that federal, state, county and city officials and legislators begin the process of purging the prisons and jails of non-violent offenders.