We all know that people who commit crime are a great danger to our families, friends, values and society. We need to know that these dangers can be overcome.
In 1986, a young economics professor in Bangladesh helped lift 42 women out of desperate poverty. He reached into his own pocket and made them a joint loan of $27. By hard work, ingenuity, and skill the women turned the $27 into a sustainable business for themselves and their families and repaid the loan in full. Today over 2 million people are lifting themselves out of poverty and paying back their small or micro loans to the Grameen Bank. The economics professor, Muhammad Yunus, started the Grameen bank as a result of his experience with the 42 women, and won the Nobel peace prize in 2006.
Tom O’Connor offers a $27 solution for lifting people out of crime. With over 20 years of experience and research in corrections, Tom knows that prisons, guns, bars and ankle bracelets can help to stop people from committing crime temporarily. Prisons, however, do not lift people out of crime and come at an enormous and unsustainable cost to society – over $60 billion each year for the US correctional system.
We need new $27 solutions. These solutions are available now. They are solutions that build on what is already good and sustainable about our correctional system, but also transform it. The are solutions that are far less costly and much more effective than the current solutions.