5/21/2015
By Charles Payne, CEO & Principal Analyst

To most people, I am known as the stock guy. However, I hold multiple titles. One I relate to most is the empowerment guy. I believe that Americans can improve their lives because we have a system that rewards hard workers, risk-takers, and visionaries. 

I'm also the law-and-order guy who believes in the death penalty, along with severe and harsh sentences for crimes that leave psychological and mental destruction. So when I see five major banks being fined $6 billion dollars and not a single person going to jail, I can't help but see the injustice.

What about the rest of Americans who find themselves in trouble for criminal activities, with fines costing less than billions of dollars?

Prison Facts

• 2.3 million prisoners
• $24,000 spent per year
• 4.4% in U.S. population

I know that many people try to blame the boom in prison population on big business, but corrections unions have played the biggest role. To be more exact, the corrections union came up with the ‘Three-strikes’ law in California and it became a perpetual motion machine. The more prisons they build, the more powerful they become.

This is an issue that isn’t going away. On the other hand, watch for the felon voting rights movement to launch into another gear. Young Americans need to buy into the criminal justice system as one of the pillars that made America the greatest nation on the planet. That means a few tweaks have to occur or maybe they should start locking up people that steal billions like someone that steals a color television.

Not only is it a moral dilemma, but its also an economic story and challenge.

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Charles Payne
Wall Street Strategies

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