The United States has the highest incarceration rate in the world. With 5% of the world's population, our country hosts nearly 25% of the world's reported prisoners. There are currently approximately two million people in American jails or prisons. Since 1984 the prison population for drug-related crimes has increased from 10% to now over 30% of the total prison population. Federal prisons held an estimated 179,204 sentenced inmates in 2007; 95,446 for drug crimes. In 2005, state prisons held a total of 1,296,700 inmates; 253,300 for drug crimes. 60% of drug-related inmates in prisons are non-violent and have been in prison solely because of drug-related crimes (Drug War Facts). The question therefore arises: is locking up those guilty of drug-related crimes really effective for society? I will use an economic approach to explain why offenders of non-violent drug crimes should not be in prison and what can be done to reduce crime associated with drug trafficking. Many people argue that drugs cause violence and there is evidence to show a positive correlation between drug use and violent and property crime (Miller and Levitt). However, it can be argued that it is not the drugs that cause the correlation, but the fact that they are illegal. Doing something illegal increases the price of obtaining that good. This additional price includes the cost of consuming information on where to purchase medications; the transaction costs (time, difficulty, risk) necessary to make the purchase, and then the drugs themselves. These are much more expensive than they would be if they were legal. Refer to the following graph. Making drug use illegal causes both supply (S1) and demand (D1) programming to shift to the left. When the supply sch...... middle of document ......tom Pub., 2006. Print."Illinois Drug Laws." Illinois Wesleyan University – Bloomington, IL. 2010. Network. 05 April 2010. Levitt, Steven D. and Sudhir A. Venkatesh. “An economic analysis of the finances of a drug gang.” The Quarterly Journal of Economics (2000): 755-89. Network. April 5, 2010Miller, Roger LeRoy., Daniel K. Benjamin, and Douglass Cecil. North. "Sex, alcohol and drugs". The economics of public issues. 16th ed. New York: Addison-Wesley, 2010. 29-32. Print."Race and prison | Facts about the war on drugs." Welcome | Drug War Facts. 2000-2008. Network. 05 April 2010. .Sullum, Giacobbe. “Webb: 'We're locking up too many people who don't belong in prison' - Hit and Run.” Journal of reason. 30 March 2009. Web. 05 April. 2010. .