I feel that they are given too much, especially with the dept. You also have to think of this: Most of those people are murderers and rapists, but instead of poor treatment, they get a roof over their head, a blanket, a hot meal, their own bathroom, and a shower. For killing someone. And that's all they get, not even a slap on the wrist, just a "time out". I think it's completely unfair, because we then have to spend OUR money, in this great economy downturn, to feed, clothe and take care of the people who rape and murder our loved ones!

And if you say "Well, some of them didn't do anything THAT bad" well, that's why they have shorter prison sentences. Though they have shorter sentences, it's still not any shorter than rapists and child molesters unless they did a really petty crime.

The prison system is in a sad state. In fact here are some statistics highlighting this from Newsweek

---Quote---
The United States, with 5 percent of the world's population, houses nearly 25 percent of the world's prisoners... We incarcerate 756 inmates per 100,000 residents—nearly five times the world average. Approximately one in every 31 adults in the United States is in prison, in jail or on supervised release. Local, state and federal spending on corrections amounts to about $70 billion per year and has increased 40 percent over the past 20 years...The Justice Department estimates that 16 percent of the adult inmates in American prisons—more than 350,000 of those incarcerated—suffer from mental illness; the percentage in juvenile custody is even higher. Justice statistics for 2007 showed that nearly 60 percent of the state prisoners serving time for a drug offense had no history of violence, and four out of five drug arrests were for drug possession, not sales.
---End Quote---

I kind of agree with the idea of packing inmates in like sardines and giving them very few privileges. People only go to prison after they are found guilty by trial. That is enough to tell me that they are guilty. That to me means they deserve to have their rights restricted. Maybe if prison actually seemed like a bad place to go it would actually act as a deterrent.