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Nicholas Kristoff: Priority Test: Health Care or Prisons?

By Real Cost of Prisons Project (The Sentencing Project)

Op-Ed Columnist : Priority Test: Health Care or Prisons? http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/20/opinion/20kristof.html?_r=1 By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF Published: August 19, 2009- NY Times At a time when we Americans may abandon health care reform because it supposedly is ?too expensive,? how is it that we can afford to imprison people like Curtis Wilkerson? Mr. Wilkerson is serving a life sentence in California ? for stealing a $2.50 pair of socks. As The Economist noted recently, he already had two offenses on his record (both for abetting robbery at age 19), and so the ?three strikes? law resulted in a life sentence. This is unjust, of course. But considering that California spends almost $49,000 annually per prison inmate, it?s also an extraordinary waste of money...continue to full post

Full post as published by The Real Cost of Prisons Weblog on August 20, 2009 (boomark / email).