![](\"http:\/\/farm6.static.flickr.com\/5151\/5915381328_a9abd30b6c_o.png\")
<\/a>\nGeorgia is number 1 in something: locking people up,\n1 in 13 of adults,\n<\/a>\nGeorgia is number 1 in something: locking people up,\n1 in 13 of adults,\n\naccording to the Pew Center on the States.<\/a>\n\n![](\"http:\/\/farm7.static.flickr.com\/6006\/5914821739_fafc9307df_o.png\")
\nThat costs us more than a billion dollars a year in tax money,\n5.9% of the state budget.\nThat’s up from $133.26 million in 1983, increased by more than a factor of seven.\n
\n \nHow about we reverse this trend?\n\n\n\n \nMeanwhile, we don’t need a private prison in Lowndes County, Georgia.\nLet’s use those tax dollars for rehabilitation and education.\n \n-jsq\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Georgia is number 1 in something: locking people up, 1 in 13 of adults, according to the Pew Center on the States. That costs us more than a billion dollars a year in tax money, 5.9% of the state budget. That’s up from $133.26 million in 1983, increased by more than a factor of seven. […]","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[97,1113,40,2,1381,72,20,178],"tags":[28,8705,8701,8730,727,7,2490,4145,75,2489,2712,60,6],"class_list":["post-1790","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-activism","category-cca","category-community","category-government","category-immigration","category-incarceration","category-law","category-vlcia","tag-cost","tag-education","tag-georgia","tag-incarceration","tag-jail","tag-lowndes-county","tag-parole","tag-pew-center-on-the-states","tag-prison","tag-probation","tag-rehabilitation","tag-tax","tag-valdosta"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p585fK-sS","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1790","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1790"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1790\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1790"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1790"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1790"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![](\"http:\/\/farm7.static.flickr.com\/6014\/5914821761_f55e76fd5a_o.png\")
\nMeanwhile, the correctional population swelled from around 100,000 in 1982 to more\nthan 550,000 in 2007.\nAnd while other states have started decreasing their prison populations,\nGeorgia’s continues to increase.<\/a>\nThe state is even coming up with new ways to lock people up,\nsuch as kicking them out of mental institutions.<\/a>\nWe seem headed back towards\n\nplantation slave labor<\/a>\nand\n\nprison road gangs<\/a>\nin for minor drug infractions.\n![](\"http:\/\/narcosphere.narconews.com\/userfiles\/70\/No+Guerra.jpeg\")
<\/a>\nIt’s time to\n\ncall off the global drug war<\/a>\nthat locks up more than half of U.S. prisoners even by official prison statistics,\nwhile many current or former law enforcement officers say\n\n“as much as 80% of all felony crime is caused by drug addiction prohibition.”<\/a>\nIt’s time to legalize, regulate, and tax.\n