North Carolina, having dealt with a prison crisis for nearly two decades, is in the process of finishing a prison-building boom.

And now faces another prison crisis.

We trust this one will be dealt with like the last one: With common sense and an eye on the burden to taxpayers.

Prison system projections, which historically have a high degree of accuracy, show the system will run beyond capacity for the foreseeable future and will be 6,000 beds short by 2017.

Solutions to that problem should include a hard look at sentences for nonviolent offenders, a bit of self-restraint in the General Assembly to push laws that make legislators look tough on crime but add only extra burden to the justice system and yes, more prisons.

We’ll never reach a utopian paradise where there is no need for prisons. There will always be people who cannot function in society without harming others. (more…)