I applaud this article for challenging the received wisdom in libertarian communities that our prison problems are a function of drug laws -- indeed, if there's one thing this article does well, it's establishing that we cannot solve our problems solely by dealing with nonviolent crime.

That said, this article makes a large number of controversial claims that it fails to support on anything other than a rhetorical level, including:

* The moral crisis in prisons is so severe that effectively any social burden should be borne for it to be fixed.

* In time, the increased public money from eliminating prisons will turn violent felons into peaceful individuals.

* The differences between the US and UK's social situations is a function of our prisons.

Ultimately, this article's vigor outweighs its coherence; it seems to oscillate between making ontological claims and moral claims, between libertarian claims and authoritarian claims (note the advocacy for more CCTV).