By Patricia L Johnson

2,245,189 is the number of prisoners in Federal, State or local jails on June 30, 2006 – an estimate of 497 inmates for every 100,000 U.S. residents.

How many do you think would be willing to serve their time in our military rather than in a jail cell?  My guess would be at least 50%, which would  coincide with the approximate number of offenders that are incarcerated for a non-violent offense [according to 2003 estimates of sentenced state inmates]

Once again, our military has met their recruiting goal for the month of July 2007 with a combination of change in age and education restrictions and monetary incentives:

Our total recruitment goals, if consistent with July, are approximately 21,000/month or an estimated total of 250,000 per year.  Our prison population increased 2.8% from mid-2005 through June 2006, so if you use that same percentage as an increase from June 2006 through June 2007, we would have an additional 62,865 inmates or a total of 2,308,054 persons incarcerated.

If just 10% of that prison population would opt to join the military rather than sit behind bars that would give us 231,000 ‘new recruits’ – or roughly 92% of our yearly requirements.

Would one out of every 10 inmates choose to join the military over a life behind bars?  My guess is they would jump at the opportunity.

The average annual cost in fiscal year 2006 for incarcerating a prisoner in a federal prison is $24,440.

What happens when we sweeten the pot?  What if the 10% of prisoners that opted to join the military were offered a $50,000 bonus upon return to the U.S. after serving two years in the military?  The cost to U.S. taxpayers would be nominal because we would no longer be paying incarceration costs and that money could go towards the bonus payment.

Our pot of ‘volunteer’ soldiers is rapidly drying up and unless there are some major changes put into place in the near future, this country will have to give serious consideration to reinstating the draft, since the new war advisor to President Bush is already looking at the possibility.  There are enough people in this country against the number of casualties we are incurring in the Middle East – the outrage will be deafening if there is a draft.

I think my plan provides a reasonable solution – what do you think?