Some more:

Reports of apathetic correction officers also continue to surface from the nation's prisons. These reports have included allegations of sexual abuse against female inmates and drug dealing at the Philadelphia Prison System's Riverside Correctional Facility.

What's worse, according to the Pennsylvania Prison Society, 90 percent of incarcerated men and women are expected to return to their communities after exposure to infectious diseases such as AIDS/HIV, hepatitis C, tuberculosis and other bacterial infections. "While HIV/AIDS is prevalent, I think the spread of hepatitis C is even more so," said Catherine Wise, director of communications for the Pennsylvania Prison Society.

America, wake up. It's time to end our reliance on prisons. It's just a bandaid. Most prisoners get out. When they do, we all need to be prepared to help them.

More importantly there's much more that can be done to prepare ex-offenders to re-enter society and not re-enter prison.

"Public education needs to be increased," Wise said. "People have to be more willing to help ex-offenders re-enter society. If we were able to spend less on corrections and more on social services, that would be ideal. We're not nearly giving enough funding for rehabilitation in prisons and I'm talking about up to date rehabilitation, up to date job training. Prison is a band-aid for deeper social issues. Another way to look at it is like this: prisons are the answer to the problems but the reality is that they're the beginning of the social problems. Prison is a quick superficial fix. It's a quick cure for our other social problems."