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to make restitution and be reintegrated into the community. This approach, which borrows from the Maori people, has become the norm in New Zealand, reducing to almost zero the number of young people locked up in expensive and violent detention facilities.

This “restorative justice” approach is spreading. Studies show crime victims who are involved in victim-offender mediation processes are less likely to experience longterm post-traumatic stress.

The involvement of the broader community is key to the success of restorative approaches. A welding instructor who volunteers to instruct inmates, a Girl Scout leader who brings girls to visit their imprisoned mothers, or a garden club that helps inmates start prison gardens all do their part to create vital links to the outside.

There are people we might agree should be locked up: psychopathic killers, rapists and others who endanger their families or communities.

But most of those in prison are people with few resources who have committed nonviolent offenses – especially poor people, people of color, drug users, alcoholics and the mentally challenged. Imprisoning millions of these people does not make us safer. But imprisoning 2.3 million people does deplete government coffers resulting in massive cuts in programs – like California’s system of higher education – that have proven track records for reducing crime.

A smarter and more compassionate criminal justice system could not only save lives and restore communities especially hard hit by imprisonments, it could save us from fiscal meltdown.

Sarah van Gelder is executive editor of YES! Magazine and yesmagazine.org. The Summer 2011 issue of YES! Magazine is “Beyond Prisons.” Copyright (C) 2011 by the American Forum.