Being number 1 per capita in prison population isn't a lean operation, a lot of people's lives depend on the system continuing.
I think the solution is to rent bulldozers, armor them, and just level a bunch of them. Too many prison beds, too many laws, it's all gotten very dumb.
Jpay, for example, is a subsidiary of a private company, and does the "fund a prisoners commissary account" as well as "send a prisoner a email" type services.
Here's their fees for money transfers for the Texas Prisoners:
$ 0.00 - 9.99 $2.45
$ 10.00 - 19.99 $3.45
$ 20.00 - 49.99 $6.45
$ 50.00 - 99.99 $8.45
$ 100.00 - 199.99 $10.45
$ 200.00 - 300.00 $12.45
They also charge it as a cash advance, which can result in additional charges from your bank.
Ouch.
You may find similar movements that you can join in pressuring local officials. The fun thing is that at this level of government, commissioners will often respond themselves, so you know even relatively few emails are making an impact.
Unbuild the existing prisons.
John Brown didn't write letters, he burned down plantations.
if you don't want bulldozers, perhaps write to your representatives, and urge them to do something before the modern day John Browns start doing it for them.
> John Brown didn't write letters, he burned down plantations.
That's a clear call to violence imo.
Funny they don't seem to shoot unarmed kids in the show at all, wish our cops took inspiration.
What portion of those arrested + detained are the type of people we want in society/civilization?
Check a list of countries by rate of incarceration[1]. Then ask yourself if it's likely that the US, El Salvador, Turkmenistan, Palau and Rwanda are the grouping that have it right. That's the top 5, in order, all at 511+ per 100k.
For comparison, Australia is 160, England is 130, Canada is 104, France is at 93, etc.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_incarcera...
Edit: Generally, I read all that as "probably 3 or 4 of every 5 US prisoners don't need to be in prison".