I am sure there are people who need to be incarcarated and are let go, and there are people who are incarcarated and should be let go, after a thorough review of their history, psychiatric condition, etc., to very securely supervised semi-jails, where they are somewhat free to come and go during the day but must be there for a pretty early, say 10 p.m., time to catch the early movie, curfew. The key is having a place for them to live that is supervised, and throwing them back in the clinker for any infractions or failure to report in or to be electronically tracked. I hope Obama does something like that..starting with the elderly prisoners, who probably wouldn't need too much supervision, but would need a place to live. You want to know where people are, some of them, and you want to make sure there is not a pool of ex-prisoners (the male ones anyway) mooching off women in various situations and perhaps bothering their teenage girls. Certainly not in public housing. So I think a whole bunch of prisoners could be semi=released, some could be totally released if there are provisions for their housing...some would have to be electornically surveyed perhaps for a very long time...and some should not ever be released barring some sort of surgery because of violence potential. mg