Tough On Crime

Funny, I don't hear any candidate talking about crime this election season.
The United States has the highest incarceration rate of any developed country, maybe even in the world, I'm not sure about that last part.
Anyway, the cost of locking up non-violent drug offenders started catching up with the states a few years ago. Even Republican legislators began to rethink the knee-jerk policies.
Now, it's come to this.

Between 1987 and last year, states increased their higher education spending by 21 percent, in inflation-adjusted dollars, according to the Pew Center on the States. During the same period, spending on corrections jumped by 127 percent.

In the Northeastern states, according to the Pew report, prison spending over the past 20 years has risen 61 percent, while higher education spending has declined by 5.5 percent.