The crime rate in California has been on the rise and with the "Three-Strikes Law", our state prison system has been greatly impacted. It is difficult to grasp that our state has the largest prison population in the country and the second highest in the world. With an increasingly diminished budget and the privatization of prisons, the system has become more focused on punishment rather than rehabilitation. Fifty-seven percent of California inmates are serving under determinate sentences for non-violent crimes such as, burglary, grand theft auto, auto theft, and drug offenses ranging from possession of rock cocaine to sale of marijuana. This means that California treats violent and non-violent offenders the same way although the propensity
